At long last I’m able to set foot off the ship. It’s raining in Juneau as always , but the rain is refreshing and more like a heavy mist. Met up with an old friend (and yes, on ships, a person you’ve known for a year qualifies as “old”) and hiked up the mountain with the rain on my face and the wind in my hair – and thought about a lot of things.
Juneau’s not a big town, it’s maybe one street but the mountain is incredible, the mountain is worth the entire town. And, since it was raining, the top of the mountain was shrouded in mist, and you could see the waterfalls formed by the ice that was melting near the top. If you listened closely you could almost hear the water rushing. I can’t believe that in the entire four months I spent in Alaska last year, I never once climbed that mountain.
In short, despite charters and oddities and missing my friends, life continues to be good. Because every so often, I get to stand in the rain next to a wood cross on a mountain top and say ‘whoever is listening, thank you…for letting me get this far.”
Bright blessings,
Shaughnessy