Now Breathe..........

A very lovely picture etched into glass doors at the new parking garage building downtown...........

The past couple of days have been a very busy blur of non-stop activity during the day and then rushing home in the dark to let my dog out and take her for a walk.

By mid-morning yesterday I was rushing around Juneau taking care of multiple errands and then rushing back to my work place to take care of more errands.

Yesterday afternoon I stopped at one facility to drop off material for an informational table I was helping staff last night, parked my car at the Sub Port and walked quickly towards the center of town in freezing temperatures and gale force winds (literally gusts topping 70 miles per hour) heading for a meeting.

My meeting started at 3pm, was scheduled to be over by 4:30pm when I was scheduled to rush back to man the info table until 7pm.

7pm.  That meant if I got out of there right on time I would make it home by 7:30pm and my dog would not have peed since 7 that morning.

It was what it was.

My freezing hands searched for my watch on the fast and cold few blocks to my meeting and I realized that I had 15 minutes before the meeting started - enough time to take a few pictures on the run.

I took only a couple of pictures and received a call from my office. 

They needed supplies.  They needed them now.  Or at the very least just as soon as I could get them there.

I looked at my watch again.

Dammit. 

Rush to get supplies.  Rush to meeting.  Do meeting.  Rush to car at Sub Port.  Rush to work and drop off supplies.  Rush back to parking lot.  Rush to man table.  Clock watch, apologize for leaving exactly at 7pm and leaving colleagues to clean up.  Rush home to let my hysterically excited dog out.  No accidents on the floor.

Now breathe......................

LC is worried about me going to Sitka by myself.

He is in Minnesota, is cold and will be heading south soon.

I have driven all over the eastern half of the country, usually with a truck loaded down with outdoor gear and equipment, and am used to travelling alone.

It is not that I do not care about his concern, but I want and greatly need to be in a different place for a while and am going.

I need space away from everything and everybody that I know, and I will seek out that space in a little nothing small fishing village on the coast of SE Alaska..............

I think I best bring at least SOME baggage though.........

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter.........John Muir