Our Anniversary

Brother Nowling and I went to Juneau for our anniversary. It's amazing how, though we've been married 28 years the need for the two of us to get away alone is so much needed. It was a great time, beside the dreary weather. Our flights went well and when we first got there seeing he worked all night before and we couldn't check into our b&b until 3 pm we went downtown, he parked and I walked the shops as I was also making contacts for the paper on before of our Alaska visitor's guide. A cruise ship had come in and the shops were busting at the seams, especially the ones that 60% - 80% off (I got a few great buys too) end of the season clearance. There's all kinds of languages all around me. I walked a long way and when I call Brother Nowling to pick me up his phone went to voicemail (ugh). My feet were killing me and after 3 tries of getting him to answer I started walking. It turned out the last time he talked to me, when he closed his phone it turned it off. We then went to a nice yogurt shop that had great soup and sandwiches and was own by Christians. From there we went to our B&B. We had such a great experience at the B&B in Valdeze I chose this over a nice hotel. Ugh, we felt like we were in a stranger's home. Don't get me wrong they were friendly enough (actually she talked non-stop until we couldn't get a word in edge wise), but our room was across from theirs. The last B&B the guest rooms were on their own floor with their own entrance. I don't know it was just more awkward this time. We felt like we had to be careful not to offend them. I also felt almost claustrophobic as she collects precious moments statues and has over 2000 of them throughout her house. In our room alone I stopped counting at 56. It was a beautiful log house and the walls were so covered with plaques and shelves you lost the beauty of the logs. Any way, we went to our room and I took an hour nap while Brother Nowling slept 3 hours. In the morning they had breakfast for us. She made french toast and eggs. Has anyone heard of spruce tip syrup? She made some, yes from spruce tree needles. It was a different flavor altogether. Not bad. Then we headed back to downtown for me to meet with more businesses and the town was dead. Everything was closed. It was amazing the change overnight because the cruise ship had pulled out. We drove around town and I took down names of businesses for me to call when I got back to the office. We then went to lunch and had some of the best pizza ever at Pizzeria Roma. The service was poor as the waiters were in the kitchen gambling, but the food was delicious. After eating we headed to the Mendenhall Glacier. I had made the statement that all the glaciers were the same, but not so. This one was a gorgeous blue and had a huge waterfall next to it. We went up to the visitor center and technically it closed the day before so it was free and we had the ranger almost to ourselves and I made contacts for our paper with them and we enjoyed looking at the glacier from a higher view as it was built up into the rocks. We then went driving from one end of Juneau to the other. Remember Juneau is surrounded by water, so we drove one way until the road ended and then headed the other way but due to road construction turned around just a couple of miles before it ended. We went to Auke Bay and it was another gorgeous site even in the rain. We stopped at sheep creek, and though we didn't see any sheep we say lots of eagles. I tried to get some good pictures but unfortunately I had some problems but I'll post one of the better ones.

We then headed back to the Hangar restaurant for our anniversary dinner. Juneau doesn't have any "fancy" restaurants just costly ones. We had been told the Hangar had great food and it had a view of the ocean. We made reservations but we got there early so had to wait about 15 minutes. If it hadn't been so dreary out the view would've been nice, it was terribly noisy but the food was absolutely delicious. He had shrimp and I had Parmesan halibut and it was so good. We then did a little more driving around and then headed back to our room. We slept in until 8 am. We had a good breakfast and then decided to take an earlier flight out as it was pouring out. When we got to Anchorage the sun was shining and it was a beautiful autumn day. Levi and Jessa invited us for dinner and we truly enjoyed it.

It was a great time away and I'm thankful we had the time together and I'm really grateful that the newspaper is picking up most the bill of it all too.

Here's few pictures.