Life Is Pretty OK

It has been an unusual week in many ways.

I have found myself, as is normal I suppose for the holiday season, eating a whole lot of food this week. 

Christmas parties at work, Christmas breakfast meetings, Christmas lunch meetings, Christmas coffee shop meetings, munching on chocolate and almond cookies that were being passed around the table at yet another (very) informal meeting.

Yuk.  Already I feel fat and soft and over-fed and bouncing off walls from the consumption of too much junk food.

A new full-time employee who moved here from California and busy with more meetings to help this person get off to a good and positive start - and grateful that he is here and able to take some of the load that I have been juggling for months.

Freezing cold temperatures and freezing cold and strong winds all week have made for the coldest week I have ever spent in Alaska to this point.

Truthfully, in addition to being very busy all week, I have had little desire to spend too much time outside taking pictures.

LC travelling across the northern portion of the country - staying just in front of and just behind the snow and ice and making it to Bellingham in plenty of time to catch the ferry tonight.

We have talked a lot.  And then talked some more.  And then some more.

His daughter is grown.  My sons are grown.  There is just the two of us and the world is not right without each other.

Like I told him tonight, with me talking with him from the Juneau airport, and he talking with me once he was settled on the Malaspina, it was a tough, expensive, soul-searching, heart-wrenching time, but we had to go through it to be in the place with each other we are at now.

And that place is a good place.

I was calling from the airport because I had just been on a short helicopter ride.

It was billed as "Helicopter Flights To See The Lights" and was a fundraiser for the Children's Tumor Foundation.

Everything was donated - use of the helicopters and the fuel to run them, and the pilots donated their time.

There were hundreds of people of all ages waiting for a ride, and I managed to get on one of them very quickly because I was doing it alone (easier to find a spot for one person rather than a 4 or 5 person family).

We were only in the air for about 10 minutes and flew over the entire Mendenhall Valley area.

It was very cool to see the entire valley from the air - a huge lighted flat area filled with cars and homes and businesses, surrounded by towering, dark and snow-covered mountains.

I have never been in a helicopter before so it was a LOT of fun, and even though the ride was short it was for a good cause and was only $30.

And the whole time I was up there, in addition to loving this experience, I was channelling LC and thinking about something he once said to me about helicopter flights..........that he had never been in a chopper before when people weren't shooting at him.

Maybe we can change that one day in the future...........

The picture above was taken right before we loaded onto the chopper.

We were told that we could not take pictures with a flash, so as to not interfere with the pilot's night vision..........

There were a whole lot of young children patiently waiting for their turn to ride in a chopper.

But for a few minutes they forgot about their impending adventure when Santa climbed out of one of them and spent a lot of time listening to these little people's Christmas wish-lists............

While downtown today I quickly went to the bank in the freezing weather, and then quickly walked back to my car at the Sub-port (next to the Coast Guard station).

Even though we are only a few days away from Christmas there were not a whole lot of people walking and shopping downtown.

Aside from many low-key Christmas decorations in store windows, you would not really know that it was almost Christmas.

Very different from what I am used to in the Lower 48...........

I guess I expected Juneau to have one of those very large, centrally located, abundantly lit Christmas trees staged somewhere downtown, with a huge lighting ceremony while school choirs sang Christmas carols, non-profits served up hot chocolate and this isolated community of folks shared in a communal and festive holiday celebration.

Or something like that.

I found this lovely mid-sized tree unexpectedly in my travels, while quickly walking through town.

Someone sent me a picture of this same tree at night when it is lit and it looks very beautiful.

There are a number of holiday-related activities in town, but I guess I expected Juneau to do Christmas bigger than it actually does.

I remember being up at Eaglecrest last February when hundreds of very hardy Juneauites spent the evening in the snow in the mountains, watching fireworks and piling wood onto a huge bonfire. 

I felt the sense of community in that event that I am talking about, and I plan on being up there again this winter......

Absolutely beautiful.

Absolutely freezing cold.

Absolutely free of people.

A town hunkered down and in hibernation for the winter.

Less snow on Douglas and downtown than there is in the Valley and Out the Road...........

I need to work off and on tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow evening.

But Jamie and I have not been to Eagle Beach since LC left here early in November, and it is time to go.

Tomorrow morning I will dress warmly and take my beautiful dog to the beach in the winter.

My Mountain Boy is on the way home.

I haven't called him my Mountain Boy in a while because for just a short while I was not certain that he was actually mine anymore.

He is eagerly making his way home.  The sun has been shining, Christmas is coming.  

Life is..........pretty OK...........