Well, when Ben left for Juneau to finish up his Master's courses, he went in the hopes that they would be the same old dull lecture courses that he experienced through most of his undergrad. Mostly because his wife was suffering from some of the worst morning sickness imaginable ("morning sickness" is really a kind way of describing it, it probably should have been called "every-waking-minute-and-sometimes-wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night sickness") and it would give him time to take care of her, work on his Master's portfolio, and still do well in class. Apparently, when you decided to take classes focusing on how to teach at UAS in Juneau, they actually make an attempt to teach you how to teach. You spend the day in class working on teaching techniques and giving presentations, and you spend the nights either working on the presentations, reading tons of material, writing papers, or reading tons more material. So, between the insane workload and Rachel's "every-waking-minute-and-sometimes-wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night sickness", we didn't get out much while we were in Juneau. This was truly unfortunate, because Juneau, a place known for having a weather pattern consisting of rain, drizzle, more rain, and finally a heavy downpour, experienced one of its sunniest and warmest Summers in 50 years. Seriously, we heard from some of the old timers that they had never seen such a sunny Summer in Juneau. However, things began to let up during the last week of classes, in both the school work and morning sickness departments, so we did manage to get out and have some fun during the last couple of weeks in Juneau.
Mendenhall Glacier and Ice Cave
We did manage to make it out for one real hike while we were in Juneau, and Luke wanted to check out the Ice Cave at Mendenhall Glacier. It was pretty ambitious for Rachel's first hike after feeling well, and we had to stop and rest a few times, but she made it the 5 miles out, and it was smooth-sailing coming back!
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| Mendenhall Lake as seen from the trail. |
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| Mendenhall Glacier. 'Twas a fine evening for a walk out to see a giant chunk of ice! |
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| Ice cave? Yup! |
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These little waterfalls coming out of the glacier
did nothing to increase our sense of security
when walking under many many tons of ice...
But they sure were perty! |
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Pregnant schmegnant! She could still take on
this little jaunt! Just not the cold cave... |
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What would you expect to find at the back of an ice cave?
Gushing torrent of water? Sure! |
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| Luke Segarra: Action Man! |
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| What time is it? 8:00? Hmmmm, we'd better get going... |
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Look closely and you will see that there are some useful
directions here among the graffiti... Thank you US Forest
Service for your unparalleled thoroughness and clear
explanations and directions! |
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Going up and down the hills was often reminiscent
of, ummmm, climbing trees... |
Alaskan Brewing Co.
Unfortunately only one of us could partake... But we found some fun stuff!
And a little random time spent checking out the old mining areas in the back nether-reaches of Juneau. Driving the streets that go straight up and down and around hairpin curves reminded Ben of driving around old Deadwood.
