Fall: A Time of Changes

Fall is a truly beautiful time in Alaska.  Well, to be fair, we haven't found any times in Alaska that aren't beautiful.  As suddenly as the leaves appeared in the light of the 20 hour days, they have turned yellow and offer still another breathtaking view of the Alaskan mountains and forest.  The fireweed has "burned up", red flames strewn sporadically all over the forest floor, licking the bottoms of the the birch trees which have torched into huge living bursts of yellow flame.




As the leaves are blown from the trees by occasional winds, the bare trees are revealing a sight forgotten in the explosion of green leaves and insane tourists: the austere and massive mountains towering to incredible heights above the rivers and lakes that have been the main focus of our enjoyment for the last few months.  It's like unwrapping a huge awesome present at Christmas!  To make it even better, as they do throughout a summer, the mountains have gradually become an earthy green, brown, and gray.  But, with startling abruptness, they have become white again, and not a slowly downward crawling, but an overnight white, surprising you every morning...until you realize that in less than a month it has crept more than halfway down the mountain.  Until today...

Life is changing for us as well.  Rachel has been working at the middle school for about a month now, and it has been a trying experience in a number of ways.  As with most jobs with the schools (especially support positions), many things are less than desirable...and we'll leave it at that.  However, she is in the schools and meeting people, gaining experience and establishing a reputation with the people in the school.  Ben has one more week with the Forest Service and then will be on a work hiatus for two weeks until he goes through the substitute teacher training.  He is really looking forward to a little time off.

We're really curious to see how this winter is going to go.  There will be a number of new things, the least of which is certainly not the sunlight (or lack thereof).  Even now with the mountains surrounding us the sun doesn't come up until after 8 AM, but at least we get nearly 11 hours of light.  Rachel is not too keen on driving to work in the dark though.  We will also have to purchase some studded tires for the first time in our lives.  We thought, "Oh no, we're from Montana, we can handle the roads."  Pictures to follow on what we've been told about some of the roads in the winter.

Despite the change in seasons, we're really looking forward to the winter and all of the changes and surprises that it will bring!

Ben and Rachel