Juneau, Alaska
11 Moments when I fell head-over-heels in love with Juneau:
1. The moments leading up to the plane landing... I always take the time to try and memorize the color blue around different places that I visit-- the blue water around Fiji is different from Juneau, which is different from the water around Sydney etc. This blue was the sea-foam blue of your dreams. I miss being near water (no, standing outside in 102 degree weather at Town Lake does NOT count).
2. Walking out of the airport and realizing that there were mountains cutting into the sky where I'm used to seeing.... well just sky.
3. The wind. I love when wind cuts through my sweatshirt, it makes my heart go !!! And my lungs swell wider than they do in TX to drink in the air.
4. The drizzle of rain that came with the sun setting (at 9:45pm). Enough for a rain jacket to keep my pajamas dry but not enough that I put on socks and shoes before going outside to stand it.
5. The second I saw the view from our airbnb for the Wild and Unwritten workshop--
6. The way the fog layers itself into the trees on the mountains. I've never seen anything like it?? It really gives the mountains so much dimension- sometimes you look at a mountain and your brain is like "Okay cool a lot of trees..." but with fog it shows how MANY trees there are--all the layers of them woven with the fog is so pretty and straight out of a fairytale.
7. Alaskan Fudge Shop More specifically the cashew-caramel chocolate bites. I think they're called Otter Paws? I think about them literally every day.
8. Taking $2 public transit everywhere with my mom. She taught me to read a bus time-table thing (well, sort of- I have a hard time with numbers) and told me about how she used to take the bus to school in San Fransisco when she was 6 years old.
9. My mom (to the girl landscaping the flowers): "The flowers look really lovely, we keep stopping to appreciate them. Are you in charge of all of them?"
The girl: "Yes. Thank you. I like working with flowers more than with people."
Me: *snaps a quick picture of her work and we go on our way to leave her with her flower friends*
10. Getting to walk to the Mendenhall Glacier (waterfall) with my mom. It was 3 miles of us just getting to walk and talk and that's all I really ever want to do so :)
11. When golden hour lasted for 3 hours on the one day the sun came out..... Being somewhere where breathing didn't mean choking on the humidity and where I didn't get sunburned from standing in the sun for 2 minutes... Where summer means you definitely still need to wear a hoodie and where there are more pine trees than cedar trees. Where sitting on the floor of a hotel room, watching Spider-man Homecoming and eating Chinese food with my mom were the only things on my to-do list. Juneau, I love you.
