Fog photos

Still foggy in Juneau today.  These are a couple of pictures I took the other day when the fog wasn't so...everywhere.  Today it's so thick you can't see across the street and there's gray skies above too.

Here I was out at Lena Point and you can see above the fog, and a bit of fog-less air right by shore.

Auke Bay, with an empty container ship sitting in light fog lit up by the setting sun.

About 5 seconds after I took this the sun was completely behind the mountain.  Auke Bay again.

Done puppy-sitting

I finished watching Mochi on Thursday, and I miss her!  :(

We've had terrible fog here for almost a week straight.  Thursday was the only reasonable good day all week, airplanes were able to land, but then it got even worse Friday through Sunday.  Most of my fellow students and almost all the faculty were up in Anchorage at a conference last week, all scheduled to fly home Friday.  Most are now stuck in Anchorage, Seattle, or one of the small communities around Juneau (Sitka, Petersburg, or Ketchikan).  Planes will sometimes take off even if they don't know for sure if they'll be able to land in their intended destination.  If they can't land they divert to the next scheduled stop, which may be all the way down in Seattle!  Those stuck should be able to get home today finally.  A few got to Petersburg then hopped the ferry last night...others will be able to fly today.  That's the breaks traveling in winter (or any season, really) in Alaska.  Very unpredictable weather, and tough approaches for most airports mean you could be stuck for days!  I friend was living in Fairbanks and trying to get to Juneau for the holidays...and ended up stuck in Portland, OR for three days waiting for weather to clear!

I got out and took a few pictures this weekend.  I was able to find a few brief breaks in the fog here and there, especially around sunset.  I'll try to get some posted soon, but I forgot to bring them in today!

There is a sun!

Woo-hoo! There IS a sun above all that fog.  The weather forecast for the next three days is mostly to completely sunny and highs of 44-45 degrees!  The sun is already out in the valley, but we're still foggy here at Lena.  If I had a car right now, I'd totally be playing hooky. 

Mochi vs. the squeaky toy

It was raining hard again yesterday and I knew I wouldn't get Mochi outside long enough to wear her out sufficiently, so when Steve suggested I take her to Petco (the pet store) I thought it was a great idea.  We wandered all over the store, met several other dogs, watched the ferrets play in their cages, and I picked out a squeaky toy for her to have once we got home.  I knew it was a gamble - there was a good chance the incessant squeaking would drive me crazy.  But it turns out it was pretty easy to tune out and it kept her occupied for several hours, until she killed the squeaker and now it's just another chew toy.  But it was a good distraction while it lasted!

One more video

Here's Mochi entertaining herself for a few moments.  I'd suggest turning off your volume, there's a loud commercial in the background.  I don't think this will show up or play on a Mac though...

snuggle time

So my favorite part of Mochi-sitting is in the mornings, when she's all cute and mellow and making her happy squeaky noises in bed.  As it gets closer to wake-up time, she wiggles closer to my head, and we snuggle for a bit before getting up for the day.  She likes getting her belly rubbed while snuggled in a nest on the down comforter.  Then I get up to shower and she either hangs out on bed (best-case scenario) or starts to terrorize things in the house (the bathroom rug an my pjs being her particular morning favorites).   

If this works, it's a very short video of Mochi being cute...only works on PCs, not Macs, I think.

 

Mochi, Mochi, Mochi

So this house sits on a steep hill and there's not a lot of flat places for Mochi to poo.  That means she does her duty on a hill, and this morning I laughed until I cried at what happened when she did.  In the barely-there light of morning I took her out to do her business and when a fresh turd went rolling down the hill, she chased after it.  When she caught up to it her head snapped back and she looked at me with her big, wide puppy eyes...she seemed equally horrified and annoyed that it was poo, not something to play with...and then cut a wide circle around it (as wide as the leash would allow) on her way back up.  I stood there laughing and laughing.

While we were outside tonight I realized that the septic line up to the road has a leak (i was running the washing machine and saw it leak out some water) which explains why Mochi keeps trying to go under the stairs.  It must smell very enticing to a dog, or at least better than her own poo.   And while we were outside I heard a whale!  It was pitch black out so I can't be sure, but it was much louder than what I think were sea lions the other day, and much bigger breaths too.  I sounded really close to shore.

Oh, and today I think Mochi finally got the hang of playing fetch!

Some more sun!

Auke Rec beach.

It's supposed to rain later, but there was a window of sunny-ish weather so I took Mochi to Auke Rec beach for some running-free time.  She found some blue mussel shells to play with, which are hard to see in her mouth in the picture below, but she carried them around for a while.

Chewing on a mussel.

Look - sun!  Sort of.  :)  We take what we can get here in Juneau. 

Mochi, watching seagulls.

Not a bad view

Good morning all!

Another Mochi update - after playing with another ~4 month old puppy for 2 1/2 hours last night, Mochi crashed HARD.  Finally!  She was a wiped-out puppy last night and this morning too.

On a walk!

Mochi and I are having a chill-out day today.  We just went for a walk and while it's not exactly 'sunny' it's not raining and the cloud ceiling is high, and there's a few breaks in the clouds here and there.  So, pretty nice for Juneau!

Not a bad view from the deck. :)

Because it's pretty nice out, I can actually enjoy the view from The House today.  It sits on a cliff, about 30 feet below the level of the road, and still ~60 or so feet above the water.  It's surrounded by trees and there's a gorgeous view of Lynn Canal, Shelter Island in the foreground, and the Chilkat Mountains in the distance.  As we were coming in from our walk I heard some sea lions grunting and spashing in the water, but I couldn't see them behind the trees.  Neat-o!  I guess you see (and hear!) a lot of whales out here too.

Zoomed in on the Chilkats from the deck.

Giving up

Yesterday Mochi did behave very well in the car all day.  She was in her kennel, so she didn't have free rein over the whole car, or she probably would have eaten the seats. 

But last night she just wouldn't settle down to go to bed.  She would jump off (landing on Seca, of course), and dart under the bed and start tearing up and chewing on the exposed carpet padding under there.  So, completely frustrated and knowing Steve HAD to get up at 4:30 to teach a class at the gym, I finally gave up and got her in the car and we went to my advisor's house for the night.  Tonight I'm packing up what I'll need to stay there until we're done puppy-sitting.  There's just not enough space in Irv for a rambunctious puppy to run, and we're not at all puppy-proofed.  Too many enticing things to chew on, and despite Mochi's best attempts at getting Seca to play, Seca wants absolutely nothing to do with Mochi.  Seca will stand with her head in the corner by the door, silently begging to be let outside and away from the Little Terror. 

There is another student at the lab with a young dog - Zephyr is about 8 months old and quite a bit bigger than Mochi.  But at lunch time yesterday we let them both out to play in the snow at the lab.  At first, Zephyr played really rough, pinning Mochi to the ground by her neck.  But eventually they came to a play level they could both enjoy, running up and down the snow piles (and up and down and up and down...it was exhausting just watching them...).  Tonight we have another play date for Mochi with friends that have a young puppy.  We're going for dinner and leaving Seca at Irv so the old lady can get some peace and quite.  I don't think she'd enjoy watching the puppies play anyways.

Oh, and the sun came out for a few minutes this morning.  It's a miracle!!   

Do not trust this face!

She looks cute and unassuming, but she's thinking of 100 ways to eat your carpet and chew up your shoes. 

She is also a good reminder of why we don't have a puppy or another dog.  :)  Or children.  If I can't handle a puppy, I definitely can't handle children. 

Meet Mochi.  She's good some of the time, quite all night (oh sweet lord what a mess I would be if she wasn't), can't handle being in a crate without making a horrible fuss, and is rapidly stressing out Seca.  But she's cute.  And she walks pretty well on a leash and makes the cutest, frustrated sighing noise when she finally settles in to sleep at night.  Seca's pretty sensitive to noise, always has been, so Mochi's yippy bark and high pitched whines were really stressing Seca out.  So I have Mochi in the car today while I'm at the lab.  She's in her kennel, and I think it behaving herself.  We'll see when I check on her at lunch time...

Rain, rain, go away

Ugh.  It's been really rainy lately, and with all the snow melting the roads are becoming flooded and it's hard to stay cooped up inside.  We're supposed to get about 2 inches of rain today. And it's incessant rain, not intermittent rain like we usually get.  When I was driving today I saw some huge waterfalls coming off the cliffs into the roads.  I hope all this rain doesn't do any damage to the roads are cause any washouts. I think I only got about 3 hours of sleep last night because the rain was so loud and because...we're taking care of my advisor's puppy for the next two weeks!  Last night she stayed at our place.  It went pretty well, overall.  She's a 'sleeps on the bed dog', which Seca never was allowed to do.  We tried putting her in her kennel for the night (which is a huge space-eating addition to Irv), but she was not interested in staying there and was very vocal about it.  But, once she was on the bed she curled up at our feet and was quiet and still all night.  That's a relief! 

The puppy's name is Mochi (Moe-key); she's a 4 month-old collie.  Seca is tolerating her amazingly well.  Mochi will jump on Seca and Seca doesn't growl.  In fact, this morning Seca was eating breakfast and I was hurrying to get Mochi's food in her bowl and I turned around and Mochi's head was in Seca's dish right along with Seca.  Yikes!  Normally Seca's pretty territorial about her food/treats with other dogs.  I can't believe Seca didn't snap at her.  I quickly split them up, just in case Seca had second thoughts.  I'll post pictures of Mochi soon!

A funny story from this weekend...I was walking Seca during a brief break in the rain and had just taken a very ungraceful fall on some ice, landing half in the road, half on the sidewalk.  Just as I was picking myself up (OUCH!), Seca decided to poo (thankfully after I fell, so I didn't fall in it!).  I picked it up in a bag and was tying it off when a big garbage truck stopped next to me and the garbage men rolled down the window and asked if I wanted to toss her poo bag in the back!  I wonder if they saw me fall and felt bad?  Anyways, I laughed pretty hard about it. 

Ok, I'll try to get some pictures up today or tomorrow.  Puppies are a lot of work!  That's a good reminder for me.  :)

UPDATE - Whoa!  Emergency flood alert here.  We're getting 1-1.5 inches of rain every six hours and several local creeks are over their record flood stage.  And there's been a mudslide out the road!  All is well at Irv though (haven't noticed any water leaks, knock on wood!).  Crappy weather to have a rambunctious puppy around though!

Welcome to 2014!

I had to write '2014' for the first time yesterday and it was weird.  I feel like 2013 flew by so quickly!  I wish everyone a fun, safe, and healthy 2014.  :)

For all our family and friends in the midwest - stay warm!  You're making the news up here in Alaska.  Mostly, we're talking about how nice it is that we've had temps in the mid to upper 30s and rain for the past week (at least here in SE Alaska).  Random tidbit that probably won't make you feel any warmer but may make you really glad you don't live in central Alaska (aka Fairbanks):  They don't cancel outdoor recess for the K-12 kids unless it's colder than -20 F.  Holy crap.  That seems awfully cold to have kids outside, but I guess when highs are below 0 for most of the winter, you adjust your standards. In the meantime, pile on the layers and I hope the cold weather system passes by you all quickly!

Pacific coast near Paracas, Peru (June 2005)

This weekend I spent a couple of hours pulling out pictures from the big trip Steve and I took in 2005.  I'm giving a travel lunch presentation (like the Antarctica one I talked about in December) about the trip this spring - probably in February.  We call the 2005 trip our 'mini around the world trip' because we spent six weeks traveling in Peru, Morocco, Spain, France, and England...Three continents in six weeks.  Looking through all the pictures really gave me the travel bug again, so we've been talking about planning another big trip.  We can't get away for 6 weeks, but maybe 3 this time.  It takes so long to get anywhere from here (and it's so expensive) that we want to be gone long enough to make it worthwhile.  So, we're tossing around ideas about where to go.  One big per-requisite is that it has to be pretty cheap once we get there since as a student I don't make a lot of money.  Steve's requirement is that is has to be hot/tropical.  I think we're leaning towards southeast Asia - perhaps one or two countries - choosing from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.  I love planning trips!

Marrakesh, Morocco (June 2005)