This memorial weekend was Juneau at its best, and we all enjoyed it! It started out with catching a skiff ride (with Nathan, Amanda, and Adam) out to Portland Island. Nathan had staked out the best sandy beach camp site (and there was only one other group on the whole side of the island–they were out of sight). The panoramic image tries to give you a sense of it (if you click on the image, you’ll get a “movie” which should load up in your browser or with quicktime and you will be able to navigate around the panorama with your mouse and control/shift for zoom).
It was incredibly relaxing, with a great beach walk. The sun was overpowering. Whales swam by three different times, sea lions visited, eagles, kingfishers, ravens, fish jumping… Torsten had a hard time getting to sleep before 10pm (despite waking up at 6am that morning!) and we all were over-sunned, over-stimulated, and happy relaxing. Carrie made (well-deserved) fun of Matt for using the iphone to email a few photos to the grandparents from camp (see them all at the gallery), but when Matt got the voicemail from Marijke that they couldn’t go up on the glacier with Era helicopters, and there was no need for Matt to hurry back to Juneautopia, we were happy to get the news.
We went on home, were a bit exhausted, but rallied to go to False Outer Point on Douglas for Eran’s 40th birthday (happy birthday!). Torsten got a nap in the car, then was ready for rock climbing and fun with the kids at the party.
On Sunday, we met Dave, Lori, and Garret for a hike up the East Glacier Trail at Mendenhall. Matt did some more playing around with the panoramas, so from one of the outlooks along the trail:
Torsten was showing his roots:
Our camera had a rough time keeping up with us this weekend–it took lots of pictures, but the digital display/viewfinder gave out, so we have a few more random pictures and a few less pictures we meant to take. But we got some good ones! Here’s Carrie and Torsten at the AJ falls:
After the hike, Matt spent some time on the roof, preparing for wireless computer connections to Lemon Creek Glacier and Carrie and Torsten worked in the yard. We went out for a bike ride with Torsten’s new trail-a-bike. He rode approximately four miles!
We biked over to Chip, Missy, and Adelie’s for some baseball, a great “local food” dinner (grilled salmon and scallops, with a Devil’s Club sauce, a fiddle head salad, and some fresh bread and strawberries (we broke the “local” part with the strawberries we brought, but Torsten is on a big strawberry kick at the moment, and they were delicious!
Since this was Memorial Day Weekend, we finally got the weekend we’ve been craving–one with three days! We took Torsten over to Garrett’s house (and the babysitter there) and we went with Dave and Lori on their “anniversary kayak”. Again, Matt got to play with the panorama:
Here’s the whole kayak gallery (for Dave and Lori!).
Other folks with cameras got photos of us, and perhaps we’ll add more details in a later blog-update, but this is getting long enough (or too long).
Juneau gave us great weather and we did our best to take advantage of it!
