What I miss most

So many good things in Juneau - and I know that you must be bored with my posts about the scenery, the wildlife and new acquaintances.  So this post will be about what I miss - and there are plenty of things!  Just this morning, with my window opened, I realized that I missed song birds.  Yes we have birds here that make noise - the ravens (a nasty-sounding cross between a crow "caw' and a mockingbird rattle) make plenty of noise but none of it attractive or "song"-like in any stretch of the imagination.  Eagles make noise, too - a wild scream, really.  Again, not too attractive.  There are lots of seagulls with their distinctive sound and ducks and geese, of course.  What I miss are the robins that signal "spring", the cardinal that "lived" at grandma's house before relocating to mine for the last year or so, and the other song birds that made such pretty music.  What I don't miss is that one bird that used to sit in the poplar tree outside my bedroom window in Greenfield that started singing just before dawn.  I figure it was a "he" because a "she" wouldn't be so disrespectful to a "sleeping beauty" (me). 

I also miss thunder storms.  Here, we get rain and clouds, but no storms.  Even snow storms aren't blizzards - no raging winds blowing the snow sideways, with drifts piling up against the window, followed by three days of extreme cold.  OK, maybe I don't miss that, either.  But thunderstorms were awesome in Wisconsin - watching the clouds roll in after an nice day was a weekend treat in the Spring.  Even the air smelled different and whatever child was home would sit on the front steps with me watching the blackening sky over the cemetery and seeing the lightening in the distance.  Sometimes we would sit outside until the rain got too hard and we would run indoors to shut the windows.  If it was night time, I would lie awake listening and counting the seconds between thunder and lightening, hoping the kids didn't wake up.  In Juneau, there is no thunder or lightening (insert giant :( here!)

I miss alternate driving routes to familiar places.  There is only one road here that goes "inbound" or "outbound" (using the downtown area as the starting point).  To go anywhere, you must go at least part of the way on the Eagan/Glacier Hwy, and turn off at various spots which will take you directly to where you need to go.  Although all roads are "scenic", you can't choose the fast way or the round-about way.  Or, in my mother-in-laws case - only taking right turns.  I don't miss the freeway system necessarily, and I certainly don't miss trying to remember which freeway was numbered 41 or 45 or 43.

The Meier Compound

I miss yard work - go ahead and laugh!  I miss walking out on grass and pulling a few weeds, watching the daffodils pop up and the hostas fill the side of the driveway (usually only after I rake out all the leaves).  I really miss my lilacs - I miss the color and the smell, and the fact that they grew no matter what I did.  The lilacs we had came courtesy of the Propp's when they were doing some landscaping at there home a long, long time ago.  They grew to great heights and I really, really miss them!  Bill misses mowing the lawn even after years of complaining about mowing the Meier Compound (funny story - the church is having their "spring cleaning" on Saturday and Bill is thrilled to be part of the "grounds crew".  He will even be able to sign up to help with summer mowing the seven acres on which the church sits).  We have a small deck and will be able to plant a tub of flowers (which, by the way, will grow CRAZY big in the long summer days), but we don't have a yard to walk on, a driveway to sweep, or trees to trim.  Oh well.  More time to take a hike (literally!).

I miss being able to buy bananas and oranges due to their high cost.  Yesterday, I went to the store to buy groceries and needed some leeks (for an awesome leek, sweet potato and carrot blended soup).  They didn't have any - didn't know when they would get some.  They had lots of green peppers - at $2.99 a pound!  Bananas are consistently at 99 cents a pound which isn't bad, I guess, if you need bananas.  Oranges are $1.49 a pound, apples (the gala's that I like) are $1.99 a pound and pineapples are $4.99 each.  Fresh fruit is to be savored!  I absolutely miss Peapod (my grocery delivery service in Milwaukee) - I don't like the time (wasted) spent going up and down the aisles and especially the time in the check-out lines (can you say "price check"!!)  Check out this week's Fred Meyer ad:

http://fredmeyer.inserts2online.com/customer_Frame.jsp?divID=701&drpStoreID=00158

Finally, I miss my friends.  I've always said that you can have lots of acquaintances but not many friends.  Friends are those who have known you for long enough to disagree with you, be able to recite a scene from a favorite movie with you line for line, and know when you are sad or happy (and usually why!).  They know your "history" so you don't have to talk about the embarrassing parts (but they still laugh at it!) and they have seen you at your worst and your best (and don't care about either).  I can call my new acquaintances "friends" but not in the true sense of the word - yet.

While Juneau isn't true "utopia" due to the things listed here (rather shallow things, really!), it has enough good things to tip the balance - and I can live without bananas!

Spring is in the air!

I can smell Spring in the air - literally!  Life is starting to stir in the wetlands and bogs in town, and with the rain and snow we've had lately, you can smell that spring "wet dirt" smell everywhere.  I've heard that Juneau has the freshest air in the world, possibly due to the Taku winds that blow strongly here, chasing all of the bad air out.  And there is nothing like fresh salty ocean air - there truly is a difference.  Today as we were driving home from church, the sun was shining brightly through the holes in the clouds and the snow-capped mountains were so beautiful.  But you can also hear the rush of water that is pounding down the mountains as the snow melts - waterfalls are everywhere.  I can only imagine what it is like higher up as the water has no deterrent to the whatever path it wants to take as gravity does it's thing.  During high tide, the birds are especially active now and the "humans" are out, too.  We saw someone out in a small row boat, towing a kayak in our cove - in Auke Bay (near us) there is a kayak rental place that is quite popular in the summer with the tourists.  With daylight savings time just starting, it will stay light until after 7 p.m. and our cove should get very active with the late afternoon high tide.
With spring comes the cruise ships - generally, the first ship docks the first week of May.  A friend at church told me that the daily paper has a listing of what ships will dock in Juneau harbor each day, when they will depart and how many passengers are on board.  At the height of the season, as many as five super-large cruise ships may be in port at any one time.  The anticipation has already started with many tourist attractions posting ads for seasonal help, stores are starting to order inventory (remember how long it takes to get things here!) and restaurants are starting to plan for their summer menus (heavy on seafood for the many tourists that arrive!).  An editorial in the morning "Empire" newspaper was written by someone from Ketchikan (south of Juneau along the Inside Passage) suggesting that more than 900,000 cruise ship passengers will visit their small town in 2012 (May through September), a 7% increase over 2011.   Juneau will probably see over 1 million passengers during the 2012 season.  This is a good thing since many shop and small business owners rely on this income to tide them over during the "off season", but also makes life very different for the locals.  It will be interesting since I work downtown, within sight of the cruise ship docks, and will see daily how it affects life there, yet I live "out the road" just past the point (the ferry dock) where most visitors go.  I think I will enjoy the vitality of the summer season but look forward to the quiet of my little place.  I'll let you know what reality is when the season starts in about seven weeks!

 I leave you with some eagle photos taken from my deck today - I know from traveling to Eagle River, Wisconsin, for years that eagles mate for life and that they could have up to three eaglets in the late spring/early summer.  Currently, there are four or five eagles that fly around daily and sit in the trees in our cove.  I will look closely to see when (or if!) little eagles start to take flight.  And, of course, I will post pictures as things change (baby eagles, tour boats and all things "summer" in Juneau!)  You should visit - really!!