Wind Songs: Walking And Wandering and Wondering

This has been the longest short week that I can remember.

After work today LC and I met colleagues - no - friends - for drinks at a local hole-in-the-wall watering hole in the Valley.

We commiserated about our interesting and challenging week and then tried (only partially successfully) to put work aside for the weekend.

People whose paths I crossed today were excited about the upcoming week.

If the weather holds as predicted it is supposed to be partly cloudy every day between now and next Thursday.

Partly cloudy. Which means sunny in Juneau-code-speak.........

After leaving the hole-in-the-wall my Mountain Boy headed in the direction of a gun shop to pick up a holster, while I headed in the direction of home.

On the spur of the moment I pulled off Glacier Highway and headed down a dead-end side road close to the condo I stayed at for three weeks when I first arrived in Juneau.

Today is my anniversary. I thought that it was coming up on nine months, but after counting it out while driving I realized that it is only eight after all.

I flew out of Nashville Airport eight months ago today.

It seems like a lifetime ago.............

A couple of days after I arrived in town I walked in the early morning, from the condo to this place.

I was not exactly sure where I was headed or what I would find when I got there, but I was eager to explore.

When I found this trail and very rocky beach I followed it all the way out to the point.

Walking and picture taking and thinking.

It was early January and it was cold, rainy and very windy.

But it was beautiful. So very beautiful.

I took a lot of pictures as I walked and explored and fell in love with the channel and the islands and the mountains and the pine trees.

My heart was overwhelmed at that point.

I was scheduled to begin a new job the next day. The job that I had left my job and my home and my son and my Mountain Boy and my dog for 4000 miles away.

I stood at the very end of the point and looked 360 degrees around me. The mountains were all around me and I truly loved them.

And I felt like the mountains at least, embraced me.

There was no-one else out there at this quiet and beautiful beach, and at that moment it felt like I had the entire world to myself.

I wondered what the hell I was doing there.

Sleeping in a strangers house in a strangers bed eating food on a strangers plate watching a strangers TV, when I had all of those things of my own down in Tennessee.

I wondered if I would like my job.

I wondered where I would live, how I would get around without my truck, how welcome I would feel by my new colleagues, and whether or not my Mountain Boy would like this new place that he had never seen before but planned on coming to because he wanted to be with me.........

On my eight month anniversary I was drawn back to this beautiful place. This time late in the evening and just as the sun was beginning to set............

The weekend after my first full week in my new job I spent almost an hour straight just walking up and down this set of stairs.

It was only about a month since I had had knee surgery, my knee was recovering but still unstable, and I needed not only exercise but to also test out my knee.

How stable was it on the up stairs? And how stable was it on the down stairs? And how would it feel the next day after stressing it continuously for almost an hour?

Eight months later my knee is fully functional and recovered............

And a place to rest at the bottom of the stairs...........

"The Point" that I have walked to countless times over the past eight months...........

The gravel trail quickly turns to a beautiful and easy-to-walk dirt trail that quickly turns to a more interesting trail full of roots and rocks.

All of this leads to the end of the mainland and opens up to a long thin walkway out to the point...........

The tide was receding by the time I walked the rocky beach. The rocks were still wet almost all the way up to the treeline.............

I picked up a number of sea shells and clam shells while I was wandering tonight.

Barnacles entirely covered all of the rocks that I jumped and skipped and climbed across, as I made my way closer to a point in the opposite direction from that which I usually travel..........

LC eventually made his way Out the Road to meet me at the beach.

This boat floated alone and unattended in the cove.............

A fuzzy over-zoomed-in picture of a fast ferry making its way back to the terminal in Auke Bay.

I have not seen many fast ferries travelling the channel, and watched this one's progress for quite a while before turning my attention to other things around me.

I was amazed at just how fast it was travelling...........