One Year

A picture taken today in back of the house.

It is difficult to believe that there is no snow left at the house, and yet so much snow still on the ground only a few miles away...........

I still have these two items resting on rafters on the back porch.

The fishing basket was bought for a dollar at a yard sale down in Tennessee a few years ago.

Me and my youngest son Chris found the old wooden rudder many years ago, lying on the shore by a lake during a walk with the dog after a storm.

I had it on the wall of our living room down in Tennessee............

Buoys adding color and decoration to trees in the back yard.

They are plentiful and are a common decoration to yards and fences in Juneau...........

We get many wild flowers and salmon berries in this small fenced area during the Spring and Summer.........

I have no idea what this thing is but it is resting up in the woods in the back yard of the house..........

An old dog house..........

An old dog sled hanging beside a structure at the side of the house.

Someone, it may have even been the home owner, told me that this building used to be a sauna..........

A beautiful string of lights behind the butterfly.............

The lights are on one side of the walkway, and this old thick chain is on the opposite side........

I feel lost. Sleeping in a strange bed, in a strange condo, in a strange town. I haven't been out on trails for what seems like years (since I blew out my knee during an adventure race in early September). I had knee surgery in early December and the knee is untested in the woods. I'll go easy and test it out tomorrow to see how it holds up. Yes......going into the woods may help.

That was a paragraph from my very first blog here in Juneau.  I arrived in this crazy place one year ago today.

I had never blogged before and had never been one to take a lot of pictures.

But then I got the job in Juneau, was leaving my Mountain Boy and my son and my dog back in Tennessee, had another son based in New Jersey who was heading back to Iraq, and flew out of Nashville Airport with a new digital camera in hand.

Here is a link to my blog post the day I landed in Juneau last year:

http://livingthejuneauadventure.blogspot.com/2010/01/i-arrived-in-juneau-this-morning-to.html

If I had to do it all over again I would not have left Tennessee.

To be clearer I would not have come to Juneau for reasons both personal and professional.

But as I told LC when he left here in November and drove all the way down to Alabama to regroup, we can't go back.

All we can do is move forward.

There are many things that I love about this place but it is still not home.

I don't know if it ever will feel like home.

But then again, I've lived in five different countries, so where exactly IS home?

No idea.  No answer.  Not a clue.

For now, Juneau is not the worst place that I can be, and I will continue to "Live the Juneau Adventure" for as long as it lasts........