The Journey of the Jersey Peach, Aka Kelli's Visit to Alaska!

I know it’s been awhile since I wrote. I left off at the part where some random dude proposed to me at a burger shack. Summary of events: I said no, fled the scene, and called Owen. After that, I had a pretty uneventful flight back to Juneau then frantically got ready for Kelli’s arrival!! Disclaimer: this blog post is gonna be a doozy, Kelli visited for 11 days and we did so much!

The day she got here (a Thursday) I planned to take the bus to the airport. I ended up screwing up the bus I was supposed to transfer onto, so I had to walk the last bit to the airport. Didn’t bother answering the text from Kelli- where are you? Uhh… walking my way over there…. Eventually I found a cut through path in the woods that led over. Only in Juneau. When we finally reunited I don’t know what I was more excited for: her or the Jersey peaches, magazines, and new running sneakers she brought me. Is that horrible? I really love magazines. But in all honesty, it was soo nice to see her! We dove right in- we took the bus downtown and hiked on the Mount Roberts pathway past the tram station. On the way up, we started talking to this couple who was traveling around Alaska. Since they didn’t have kids or grandkids of their own, they essentially pretended we were their kids and told us all about their travels. They even took a video of the trail and included us in it. High up on the trail, we saw a marmot, a grouse, and grouse babies. Two months ago, if you asked me what a marmot or a grouse was I couldn’t even tell you. That night, we had dinner with Bill and Sarah, the father and daughter of the Awesome Family. I’m so glad Kelli got to meet some of them. We feasted on pizza and cheesecake and told stories about Alaska until Kelli was pretty much asleep at the table. Also, they let me borrow their car!! I'm not religious, but "God Bless that family" seems to be the most appropriate phrase here. Subie, as they call her, is an old Subaru and she is AWESOME. It’s got nothing on Ole Faithful, my 15 year old Oldsmobile back at home, but it’s a close second.  

On the Mt. Roberts trail

Friday we drove Subie downtown and picked up tickets to our boat tour for the day, where I was informed we had exactly five minutes to park, pay for parking, and make it over to the boat dock and on the boat. Cue the panic! No joke, paying for parking involved an intricate folding of dollar bills and placing them into this tiny hole in a peg-like board. Seven times we did it! We arrived on the boat sweating and flustered, two young and crazy girls amongst calm, elderly cruise goers. After that fiasco, the rest of the day was great! The boat ride went out to Tracy Arm- Fords Terror Wilderness (isn’t that the coolest name?). We saw 5 bears along the way and then when we got to the glacier we saw hundreds of seals and huge pieces falling off (calving), big enough to make waves that rocked the boat. I’ll let the pictures do the rest of the talking. That night we got dinner at a restaurant overlooking the docks downtown. Our waitress was mid-sentence, about to take our order when she asked if we were twins! Rough status for me.

The splash created by a piece of the glacier calving off

The boat came right up to the waterfall!

Mama bear with tiny brown cub

Saturday we went mountain biking out to Herbert glacier with Sarah and her friend! I felt pretty legit, whizzing through the woods on a bike. That night we watched tv together, Undercover Bosses, and both wept. This is what happens when you get two sisters together.

We made it!

Kelli and Sarah's friend

On Sunday I did a 14 mile run and Kelli biked with me as my support vehicle. After that we drove out the road (remember, there’s essentially only one road in Juneau) and had a picnic lunch at Auke Rec, this cool area with tons of covered tables. We walked out along this arm to the tip and debated crashing a party. We also drove out to something called the Shrine of Saint Teresa to see what all the hubbub was about. It is still unclear exactly what the shrine was.

Goofing off at Auke Rec

Monday I worked in the morning and sent Kelli off downtown to test her wits against the masses of tourists. Mark and I did respiration work at two sites on Douglas Island. We picked Kelli up on our way home. She survived! I was off the hook after that, and it was a sunny day so me and Kel drove home, changed, and went swimming in Auke Lake! Never in my wildest dreams would I have believed it would have been warm enough one day to go swimming here. The water was freezing but who cares? And there were other people too- jetskiing, on inner tubes, everyone enjoying their one day on the water. Afterwards we got shakes and burgers and Hot Bite and walked down to the docks, eating and admiring fancy boats.

Auke Lake- don't be deceived, the water was frigid!

Tuesday we went downtown and found the infamous Silverbow Bagel shop which I had been told was owned by New Jerseyans and thus actually had decent bagels. Confirmed. While souvenir shopping, we came across this awesome quote: “When where you live inspires what you do, we call that living life Alaskan.” I worked in the afternoon, Mark and I did the third respiration site on Douglas Island and I got to hear his very best bear encounter story. It was our last day working together before he leaves next week!

"Before I die I want to... see the Northern Lights." Looks like I'll have to come back to Alaska!

On Wednesday Kelli went to the library for a Skype conference call. Meanwhile, her older “hardworking” sister sat around and shot the shit. Actually I went for a run around Auke Lake, there was no work for me to do in the lab! That afternoon we drove out the road to Eagle Beach, the site that I had been dreaming about going to all summer. It’s at least 20 miles from the bunkhouse and before I acquired Subie I actually told myself I’d bike there. That’s how badly I wanted to go. It’s just a really scenic beach, and we walked around taking pictures, watching bald eagles, and laughing at each other at our improper shoe choices. Kelli wore sneakers so I had to carry her across the water at one point; I wore flip flops and had to do a strange chicken walk across the muck so they didn’t sink in and rip right off. We also drove all the way out to the end of the road. Nothing like that in New Jersey. Once home, we frantically packed, ate, and then John (who I’ve done field work with) dropped us off at the ferry terminal. We hopped on a ferry en route to Skagway, a town north of Juneau in Southeast Alaska. I had been told about a magical place on the ferry called a solarium, where supposedly there are deck chairs and people who choose not to get a state room camp up there in sleeping bags. Well, we found it and it was frucking awesome (If I change the word, does that make it OK to use? It was so cool that it really deserves a curse word.). It was super full, so Kelli got the last deck chair and I set up on the floor next to her. We ate snacks, read, and watched in awe as everyone went through their nightly routines, brushing their teeth, taking contacts out (actually that was Kelli), and reading books by the light of headlamps. It is unclear whether I slept at all that night.

Eagle Beach

The solarium while everyone (except me) slept

We got into Skagway at the beautiful hour of 4:45am. I changed, brushed my teeth, and washed my face at the ferry terminal and was reminded of my homeless hitchhiking days. Then we walked to town, only a few minutes away. Skagway is a tiny, former thriving Gold Rush town. Now the main attraction is tourism. Funny thing was, even though no stores were open there were others on the street too, all of us who came off the ferry. When the first coffee shop opened at 6am, everyone convened there. We got breakfast and I tried to sleep under a newspaper, unsuccessfully. I did manage to fall asleep on my hand though. After that we picked up a rental car after a bit of confusion. We ended up getting an 8 person van…  Lots of room for the one backpack we brought with us…. We quickly named it White Shake because it was white and shook for about a minute after we went over any bump in the road. The brakes were also rather questionable. Basically, if we saw something we wanted to stop at along the way the car couldn’t brake fast enough so we’d blow past it, then turn around up ahead and creep our way back to the site. This happened about five times that day. So where did we even go? We traveled far and wide, across continental borders to Canada! We wolfed down the apples we had brought with us before we got to the border for fear we’d be searched. We drove through British Columbia and then into Yukon Territory out to the town of Carcross and turned around at Emerald Lake. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous. Only what I had ever seen in a magazine. We met a group of Germans at the world’s smallest desert, were lured to see Husky puppies but snuck in for free, and I snuck a picture of an awesome, $30 per person suspension bridge through a ploy to use their bathroom. Back in Skagway we drove to Dyea, a nearby ghost town with nothing left but was once thriving. We were warned that the road there was steep, winding, and narrow. Perfect conditions for White Shake. Per Kelli’s demands, we drove about 15 mph the whole way up, letting every single car pass us. We finally made it, with only enough time to do a quick run/walk, and saw pretty much nothing. Because the town no longer exists. We were even more disappointed because the rental car guy had nearly guaranteed that we’d see a grizzly bear up there, and we saw zilch. But then! As I was backing up White Shake (after having joked with Kelli to GET IN THE CAR NOW as if I’d seen a bear), we saw a MOTHER EFFING GRIZZLY BEAR! I turned behind me to back up and it was off to our right, on all fours and walking into the woods. I kid you not, it was like seeing an actual monster living among us. That thing was huge. So, the precarious trip up to Dyea was all worth it in that one instant. We made it back down and proudly returned White Shake. That night we checked into our hotel, ate dinner, and wandered around the town of Skagway. By 7pm, it was almost entirely deserted. It was a very curious town to say the least.

White Shake, what a beaut

World's Smallest Desert

The suspension bridge picture I snagged

On Friday we walked around town then somehow found our way to a waterfall, despite our directions being “turn at the red barn” and the fact that there were no signs whatsoever for it. Then we walked back to town, got a kick ass lunch, and got a ride from our hotel back to the ferry. The solarium was sadly empty because the ferry wasn’t going anywhere overnight. We hunkered down in our sleeping bags anyway and sat on deck chairs right out on the deck, staying even when it started drizzling. We were toasty warm and probably looked insane. You can decide for yourself. Back in Juneau that night, we picked up somewhat of a hitchhiker from the ferry and John dropped us off then gave him a ride into town. We watched a movie with Alex about Timothy Treadwell, the man who lived with grizzly bears and eventually got eaten by one. Delightful.

Cozy on the ferry deck

Saturday we adventured on Douglas Island. First we hiked up a trail winding through the ski mountain. Close to the top, we stopped at a construction zone area to eat lunch. All of a sudden, this guy (Kelli claims it was a leprechaun) ran/lept out of the construction building. I asked him about getting to a better viewpoint and he simply said “follow the wooden boards” and then flew onto the trail and off he ran, into the abyss. We made our way along that same trail, much slower than him, until we were actually in the clouds and couldn’t see a damn thing even if the view was right in front of us. So we headed back down the mountain, debating whether that guy was actually real or not. We got lunch on Douglas at the Island Pub and feasted on an amazing pizza, then drove out to Sandy Beach and I drooled at how cute everyone’s dogs were.

Following the wooden boards

Sandy Beach

Sunday, Kelli’s last day here, we went on a helicopter ride in the morning! Hell yeah! I got to sit next to the pilot, Kelli was next to me, and we flew over the glacier here in Juneau then landed on it. We peered down crevasses, drank glacial water, and watched our guide slather his face with “glacial scrub.” Ahh it was so cool to be on the glacier that I was always looking at from so far away. After the ride I went for a 15 mile run, Kelli biked. We went downtown and after stretching out my creaking body we got a huge mint dessert from the Hangar restaurant. Best. Ending to a run. Ever. At home, we shoved all Kelli’s things in her bags and drove to the glacier one last time to look for bears and salmon (we had gone probably four times already). No bears but we finally saw the salmon running! It was a nice last Alaskan thing for her to do. Then I dropped the kid off at the airport and I was alone yet again. Naturally, I took a bath immediately after getting home.

Yeah, we're cool

On the glacier!

That was almost a week ago. What have I been doing since then? You will find out in the next blog post because if I write any longer and if you read any longer we will both go insane!