The end of the road

 
Another beautiful day - warm (-ish), sunny, smells like fish and the sea.  We got the motorcycle out of the back of the truck on Wednesday night and Steve spent yesterday putting it back together.  So naturally today we had to go for a ride before the weather turns to rain for the weekend. 

Low tide!  All this will be covered with water at high tide... This is looking west at the mountains and islands across the channel.

We drove to the north end of the road.  It goes about 30 miles from where we live, judging by the fact that we put on about 60 miles total with only a few deviations from the main road.  Like everything else out here so far, it was fantastically beautiful.  I was cold by the time we got back.

There was some road construction where they're working on widening the road.  We had to wait about 25 minutes for the pilot car, but the sign guy took our picture!

This is one of several boat ramps up the road.

The water was so calm in this pond!

A self portrait.  Check out my new helmet!

Our neighbors

Someone asked about our neighbors and the RV park, so here’s the scoop.  We’re in a park with mostly permanent residents.  They’re largely blue collar workers (which seems pretty common here), and everyone we’ve met so far has been incredibly nice and welcoming.  It’s a nice place, though some of the trailers are a bit run down.  Our immediate neighbors are Cliff (on the left, we share a patch of yard) and Pete (on the right).  Cliff’s been living here in the park for 6 years (and had lots of good tips for us), works in construction during the warmer season and odd jobs during the slow season.  Pete has lived all over the Pacific Northwest  and Rocky Mountains and is a helicopter mechanic.  Most of the RVs and trailers in the park look like they’ve been here a long time and have large propane tanks hooked set up outside (we’ll need to look into that).  

The Park manager lives in a little house on the property.  Her niece owns the park (just bought it this summer) and Sharon moved here a couple of months ago from Idaho to manage the park.  There’s a small bath house with one men’s and one women’s shower (and toilet/sink in each) and washers and driers.  Steve got the low down from another resident about which washer and drier is best.  The bathrooms are clean.  Because of the humidity issues we’re using our RV shower for storage and showering in the bath house (and we have to pay a little extra each month for that).  We haven’t had a lot of issues with needing to wait for the showers to be open, but if we do in the future that may get annoying.

The Park is immediately across the street from a marina and Auke Bay.  It’s a pretty fantastic view.  We’ve heard through the grapevine that in a few years the RV park will be developed into condos.  We’ll have to find alternate living arrangements before then, though we’d probably get a decent amount of advance notice (I hope).  Across the street and to the left a bit is the Post Office.  Very convenient.  Work for me is about 5 miles ‘out the road’ or roughly north and away from the city.

Auke Lake trail

Sunday we woke up to gorgeous weather – clearing skies and temps heading towards the mid-60s.  Perfect!  Unfortunately, we spent almost all day installing plastic over the windows to help with the indoor moisture issue.  First we used bubble wrap to cover the metal trim around all the windows (moisture would really condense on the cold metal), then placed the plastic over that and the windows.  We also talked with some of our neighbors about what they do to control indoor humidity, and most use a dehumidifier.  We’ll look for one of those.  So far (after two nights) the plastic over the windows seems to be working well.  You can still see some condensation lines on the ceiling where there must be metal studs running through the ceiling without any insulation around them.  That’s a bummer and I don’t know what to do about that short of reducing total moisture with a dehumidifier.  

After working hard all day we took a long walk around Auke Lake.  It’s a short walk to the lake from where we live, and there is a trail along one side of the lake and you follow the road for the other part around the lake.  It was a very nice stroll, and it felt good to get out for a walk.  

There were people waterskiing in the lake!  Holy crap.  The water couldn’t have been warmer than 55-65 degrees.  It was sunny but only about 66 degrees outside!  Oh, and there was a float plane parked in the weeds.  It doesn’t seem like a big enough lake to fly in and out of, but what do I know?

A lot of the foliage looks similar to what we had in Wisconsin, though it’s greener here and there’s a lot more moss and far, far bigger trees (and different tree species too).  We thought this plant looked a lot like giant spinach.  Very ‘Jurassic Park’ if you ask me.

When the sun is out and the clouds are gone, the mountains are stunningly beautiful.  This is the University of Alaska – Southeast campus (a different school than what I am attending).  Love the view!

Part of our hike took us across a small creek that feeds the lake from the mountains.  There were Sockeye salmon in there, along with these flatfish, and I don’t know (yet) what they are.  In general, it smells a bit like dead fish around the city, because there are so many streams and the salmon die (and then smell bad) after they spawn.  Oh, and we saw a dead salmon on the road.  It must have been dropped by a bird or bear or some other animal, but we laughed really hard when we saw it.  This is the first place we’ve lived where a fish could be considered road kill…

Gratuitous dead fish picture.  Kinda gross.  Definitely stinky.

Reactions to our living in an RV

I went into school on Wednesday last week to start taking care of paperwork and meet with my advisor.  The administrative staff there are great – totally on top of things, helpful, and nice.  They asked if we’d found a place to live yet, knowing how difficult it is for students.  Rather self-consciously, I told them we were living in an RV that we’d moved up here.  To my complete surprise, their reaction was “Oh, what a great idea!” said with complete sincerity.   A great idea?  Even I don’t think it’s a GREAT idea…it’s certainly practical and economical…but probably not great or ideal.   That has been the universal reaction up here – from our neighbors (who obviously also live in RVs or trailers), my advisor, and others we’ve met.  I think the reaction says something about the mentality of people up here – they seem practical and open to ideas that are a bit out of the mainstream.  I like it.

Now, on the practical side of living in an RV in a place where it’s cool-to-cold and very rainy and humid...moisture is going to be a constant battle.  We’re trying to brainstorm ways to keep the windows from fogging up and then dripping down the walls (and into the bed, couch, etc).  We may try to insulate the cold metal of the window frames with some bubble wrap, then use the indoor clear window ‘shrink wrap’ kits with the hope that that creates a buffer to keep moisture from condensing on the cold windows.  Anyone have any other great ideas?

We turned the RV furnace on yesterday for the first time, and have it set at about 55, just to keep us above a threshold.  It doesn’t kick on much so far.  We’ve been in the 55-60 range for highs and lows around 50. 

I don’t know if I mentioned it yet or not, but we rented a heated storage locker last week and moved a ton of stuff into it.  Now Irv is much more spacious (well, relatively speaking) and we don’t need to constantly move things out of the way.  There’s a funky, nasty smell coming from under the sink, so investigating that is next on the ‘to do’ list.   Yay.

Downtown Juneau

 

After visiting the glacier we headed downtown.  It was about 5 pm when we got there and the cruise ships were getting ready to head back out, so things were getting quiet in town.  The downtown area is maybe 15 miles or so from the Valley (where we are) and it’s more tucked beneath the mountains than we are here.  Because of the mountains looming overhead, they get even more rain and fog than we do.  The city is built into the hills and the roads are steep, with long staircases leading up and up and up.  We ran into a bus driver up at Mendenhall who lived downtown in the summer and said coming home in the dark at night was scary because he often encountered bears on the stairs!  

Down on the docks, loading ice and unloading fish.

There’s a tram that goes to the top of Mt. Roberts, leaving right from the cruise ship terminal.  It’s got a great view on a clear day (or so we’re told), but it costs $29 for the round trip!  That’s highway robbery!  You can also hike up in 1-2 hours, which we’ll do someday.

Mendenhall Glacier and bears

It wasn’t raining and the cloud ceiling was pretty high (our new version of a ‘sunny’ day?) so we took a break from getting settled to do some sightseeing today.   Because it features so prominently on the landscape, Mendenhall Glacier was a natural first stop.  You can see it hanging up there in the mountains from several places in ‘the Valley’ where we live.   There are trails from the parking lot that wander along boardwalks and along the lake at the foot of the glacier.  There’s also a visitor center, but we didn’t go in because you have to pay and we’re trying to not spend money.

(salmon spawning)

Along the boardwalk you could see sockeye salmon that were returning to spawn, or in various stages of spawning and dying.  For a fish geek like me, it was totally awesome.

You can really get a sense of how steep the mountains are around here from these photos.  They’re impressive and so green!

The glacier meets the water right next to a waterfall.  There’s a lot more trails in the area that we’ll explore someday.

Icebergs in the lake.

Though the ice looks solid from far away, it’s full of cracks and spires.  I want to see what it looks like up on top!

Steve, looking dashing.

These two  (tourists?) were taking a quick dip.  Crazy people.

                                         Beautiful.

As we were leaving we saw black bears!!  There was a cinnamon colored female with two cubs by the river feeding on salmon, then as we were driving out we saw another female with two cubs crossing the road (below)!  The cubs are so darn cute...glad we were in our car though.