After a long day spent on a ferry boat, it was good to have a ramble in the Alaskan wilds.
First, we walked on the beach at the bay.
Then, into the woods. Definitely Pacific Northwest Rain Forest.
Tuesday, October 27th. It was a quiet day here at Willow's Cottage. We woke early and greeted PAL who was here to spend the morning with us. After breakfast and her math test, we ventured out to Crumb Cookie where she used her birthday gift card to buy her favorite cookie. When we returned, we ate popcorn and played Opposite Words. If you say yes, you mean no. If you say no, you mean yes. Oh the silly things we said. "I'm so full now that it is midnight." "Do you dislike that book?" "I am not enjoying it at all."
Nathan (grandson Tall Boy) came over and mowed our lawn. Then I drove him to the university so he could work his shift there. I spent an hour doing the edging before it was time for dinner.
And now we are just resting. Some days are like this. And sometimes it's what we need.
As we neared the end of our ferry ride, we passed this beautiful lighthouse. My favorite.
We finally arrived at Gustavus. A small bus was waiting for us to drive us to the Glacier Bay Lodge where we would be staying two nights.
Glacier Bay Lodge
Craftsmen have created artworks around the area.
What a beautiful place to spend two nights!
Whales!
As we were traveling through the various channels around islands towards Gustavus, we encountered a pod of Orca whales. They were frolicking in the waters near our ferry boat.
First, someone who was standing outside on the deck noticed the spouts and yelled, "Whales!"
Can you see the spouts on the left, way out in the distance?
After we returned to Juneau, we decided to just relax the next day. Evidently, we really relaxed because I don't have photos of our wanderings around Juneau that day. I know we returned to Heritage Coffee and enjoyed our morning brews. We walked around downtown and revisited some shops and restaurants.
But the next morning we were up and out of our hotel bright and early to catch another ferry ride. This time our destination was Glacier Bay. I have to say that the four hour ferry trip was one of my favorites. Why? We saw fishing boats and whales!
I snapped forty (yes, I wrote FORTY) pictures of the whales. No, I won't bore you with all forty photos... in fact, I am still working through to organize them. So sorry, today all you get are fishing boat photos.
The weather was cloudy and that made for some great pictures; they almost look like old fashioned black and white photos.
Another week of busy days. But also another week of many blessings. Friday Fave Fives gives me an opportunity to share five events or thoughts or actions that made me grateful this week. Use the link to join in and share yours or just read what others have written. Here are my five blessings:
1. Do you ever wake up in the morning and just go about your day as usual? Normally, I do too. But this morning as I woke up, I noticed the sun beginning to shine through the windows. It struck me that I just accept that the sun will rise every morning and move across the sky in its usual way every day. But today I stopped to just be amazed that sun does that. God created an amazing world for us to live in. Let's not take our sun, moon and stars for granted.
2. Autumn is such a fun season. Everyone mentions pumpkins, Halloween, pumpkin spice lattes, and sweater weather. Me? I love the leaves on the ground. I love to walk through them and toss them around. And I love watching them fall from the trees as the wind blows. On our walk today, Mia (nurse daughter) turned around and grinned at me as I happily shuffled through the leaves.
3. On that walk today with the dogs, we passed a deer. It was calmly sitting on the other side of the creek along our path. As we walked past with two loud crazy dogs, it just lounged in the grass under the trees and watched. It never moved or pranced away. Wild life animals never fail to amuse me.
4. Last night, The Professor and I spent the evening (total of five hours) volunteering at the Nightbirde Foundation Night of Hope. Did you ever watch America's Got Talent? Nightbirde is the name of a young woman who won a gold bell ring on AGT. Her actual name was Jane but she went by Nightbirde. Not long after being on the show, Jane died of recurring breast cancer. Her brothers attend the same church as we do, and our church hosts the annual event Night of Hope in our building which helps raise funds to provide women with what they need as they go through chemo and surgery for breast cancer.
5. Our weather has been sunny and warmish. That means I have been outside in my garden every day. The garden beds are starting to look a bit more organized and cleaned up. It is so satisfying to get the fall garden chores done. Still have lots to do, but I am making progress.
Just a picture of a tree we passed on our walk to make you smile...
Another summer blossom that showed up in autumn. Cosmos. As I was driving away from home this morning, I noticed that a cosmos was blooming in our front garden, so this afternoon I went out and took a photo of it before it wilted.
Now I am wondering if a rhododendron or a sunflower will suddenly bloom tomorrow.
When I was outside this afternoon cutting away more tomato plants which had died in the recent freeze, I happened to glance over at the hibiscus bush. Imagine my surprise when I noticed a bloom. In mid October. Crazy weather. Hibiscus flowers bloom for only one or two days, so I think this one will be wilted by tomorrow morning. But it was a treat for it to bloom so late in the season.
There were a few ripe red raspberries, but I didn't take a photo of them before I picked them off the bush and popped them in my mouth. Yum!
We are supposed to have a bit of a freeze again tonight, so it will be interesting to check tomorrow for what plants have died and which ones have bloomed.
