A Walk Downtown

All morning I worked downtown, and took these pictures while walking to and from a meeting at a coffee shop that I had this morning.

There is a lot of snow downtown, but nowhere near as much as there is out in the Valley and especially Out the Road.

The roads are quiet now, and the sidewalks are also very quiet this time of year.

Locals can even find on-street parking nowadays.....

This time of year it is difficult to believe either that Juneau is the capital city of Alaska, or that in another five months there will be twice as many stores open in town as there are now, and thousands of tourists walking, gawking, picture taking, and carting around Juneau-bought trinkets..........

The low white building on the corner in this picture is a McDonald's restaurant, and surprisingly it will be closing soon.

I find it hard to believe, since it is located in such a prime spot not too far from the cruise ship docks, that it does not do enough business to continue.

But apparently not.

There is one more McDonald's in the Valley that is only a drive-through, and there are three Subway shops spread out around town and that's about it for fast food.

I miss Zaxby's Chicken Finger Sandwich Meals, and would pay big bucks for a Wendy's Frosty.  I miss pizza from a mom and pop Italian joint down in Tennessee called Raphaels.  But that's about it.

LC misses Burger King. 

I know many people who speak longingly of Popeyes and Taco Bell and Ihop.

It is amazing how fast food joints are ingrained into our collective American psyche.

When Juneauites talk about the things they miss the most from their previous lives down in the Lower 48 family and fast food restaurants are always mentioned............

Fully half of all stores in downtown Juneau are owned and operated by the cruise ship lines and close up once the last boat sails out of town in September.

With the exception of the banks and either city, state or federal office buildings, the remainder of downtown is made up of independent and locally owned businesses - coffee shops, book stores, an expensive outdoor gear store, an impressive number of bars, artsy and fartsy stores, that sort of thing...........

Quiet streets.

Truthfully though, these downtown streets can be a little creepy this time of year - and especially late in the afternoon into early evening - lots of homeless people milling around.

When I came up for my interview in early November of 2009 I remember walking around town around 4:30pm.

It was almost dark, there was nobody else walking around, lots of bars open but almost no stores open.

On that day, in a strange town alone, I ended up going back to the hotel feeling creeped out when I walked down a street and passed a soup kitchen, with a good number of homeless people milling around on the sidewalk.

Lovely town that is surrounded by lovely mountains.

But I do feel uncomfortable walking late in the afternoon and into the evening in Juneau in the winter. 

The days are darker and colder, and so are the homeless people...........

My 9am meeting was at a downtown coffee shop called Silverbow Bakery.

One of those yuppie urban vanilla-frappachino-whipped-cream-in-your-coffee-four-bucks-for-a-blueberry-scone type of places.

My regular black coffee is a bargain in comparison.

I had been taking pictures downtown off and on during my walk up the hill towards the coffee shop.

I turned back towards the downhill and was stunned to see part of the sunrise down at the channel.

I could only see a small part of it through and over the downtown buildings.

For one split second I forgot about my meeting and felt compelled to walk back down the hill, down to the channel and to take pictures of what looked like a very beautiful sunrise filled sky.

I looked at my watch.

8:57am.

Damn.

The sunrise was just going to have to continue rising without me..........

I mentioned once before while blogging pictures during my visit to Sitka that there is a lot of wonderful painted art work to be found on the sides of buildings in Alaska.

This lovely and large whale painting is located directly outside the coffee shop.............

This painting close to the back of Juneau is absolutely amazing.

It is huge, taking up the entire outside length of one building.

It is colorful, it is beautiful, it adds so much color to what was otherwise a very grey and cold winter day in Juneau............

Homes far too close together with rugged mountains in the background..........

Walking down a side street that I do not usually travel on I surprisingly found two more colorful and beautiful paintings...........

This road deadends at the channel in one direction and at the mountains in the opposite direction.

Up the hill at the end of this road is a set of stairs (probably 100 or so steps).

The stairs take you up to the next street.

Last February I walked up this road, climbed up the stairs, and then took a picture from the steps looking all the way back down to the water at the bottom of the very long and narrow street.

Beyond the steps are more back roads that eventually lead to a secondary gravel road and then trail heads. 

I climbed Mt Roberts up to the tramway terminal on that day.................

Inevitably in my travels downtown, I end up at Marine Park.........

A pretty town.

And I am so glad I live Out the Road..........

This afternoon I had a meeting out in the Valley.

My 4-wheel drive truck without the camper...........

Late in the morning it started snowing.

The snow was fine but heavy, and when I called LC at home he told me that it was also snowing heavily out at the house.  Big fat heavy flakes.

These are pictures he took of the snow this afternoon..........

On the way home tonight I pulled off Glacier Highway and saw just how much snow had actually fallen close to the house.

The side road was filled with new and deep snow, the road was unploughed, and my 4-wheel-drive was making it through that mess without a problem.

Too cool.

As I made my way further down the road I had to pull over and stop the truck.

A large box truck was sitting in the ditch in the snow bank, and a tow truck was parked sideways across the width of the road trying to pull him out.

15 minutes later the box truck was free, the tow truck had pulled off the road and over to the side, and vehicles that had been blocked in both directions (including mine) could continue on...........

One last look at colorful retaining wall artwork..........

Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories ~ From the movie An Affair to Remember