a great day in Sitka, Alaska!

This is the first Labor Day I've celebrated in a few years, as this is the first public school I've worked for in a few years. I've got to admit that this has been a better holiday than most!

This morning, JoElle and I did our best to sleep in, but we still have children. It was a slow morning nevertheless, but we got out of the house before noon. Once out, we took the kids, our dog, my Utilikilt and our FiveFingers to the Starrigavan Recreation Area. We walked the boardwalk through the estuary and had a good time watching some songbirds in the grass and the last of the salmon spawning run (humpies mostly, better known as pink salmon to people who don't fish up here, also regarded as the worst-tasting of the salmon species). After walking the boardwalk, we crossed the road to try to walk along the bay on the Mosquito Cove loop, but the trail was closed due to bear activity recently. We drove around Starrigavan briefly, then drove to another spot where we could watch the waves crashing on the shore. Seren and I got out to throw rocks in the ocean and we all were amused by seeing surfers working as hard as they could to catch some 5-footers. When we were done walking around, we dropped the dog off at home and I changed into some more casual attire.

Before leaving the house, we found our driveway blocked by an unfamiliar vehicle. As I turned around to see who it was, I found Bill Hutton at the window of our car! Bill is the former Superintendent at MEHS and was the man who headed up the search that hired me. I met him in person for the first time about a week ago and we had a really good talk at that time, and he was standing in our driveway just now with a grin on his face and a bag of fresh halibut in his hands. He wished us a happy Labor Day, passed off the fish, and checked to make sure that the apartment was fine for us (he'd checked it out for us when we still lived 3000 miles away). After I ran the fish in to the fridge, we got back out on the road.

We headed into town and hit up the Agave Restaurant because Seren had been expressing a desire for fish (I thought about cooking what we'd just received, but JoElle was enjoying a day out in the sun). We got the kids fish and chips, JoElle picked up a halibut fish taco, and I got a prawn and rice platter. We were all very happy with the food and worked it off by walking around on Lincoln Street downtown. We were very pleased to find out that FiveFingers shoes will be arriving in town this spring, so we may work on saving up to get the models we've both had our eyes on. We wrapped up our roaming by stopping for a shake and a chocolate root beer float at Harry Race Pharmacy, then let Seren play around a bit on the grass at Totem Square. With Porter wiped out, we finally came home. All in all, a very good day.

PICTURES!!

Starrigavan Estuary - we live in a truly beautiful place!

Berries!

JoElle is obsessed with the size of these slugs.

See? Obsessed.

A heron fishing in the estuary.

Humpies busy rotting (some live, some dead).

JoElle and Seren playing in Totem Park, with Sitka Channel and Japonski Island behind them.

taking in some scenery

I've been taking pictures all over town of pretty areas, broad seascapes, and scenic views from unlikely places. I wanted to share some of these with you so that you can get an idea of what we see all around us every day. I hope you enjoy these sights as much as I do. :)

One of my favorite spots to look out into the ocean is from the parking lot of the grocery store, located about ¼ of a mile down the hill from our house.

Shore and islands viewable from the Seamart parking lot.

More view from Seamart.

Same parking lot.

Obligatory sun-shining-on-the-water picture, taken at the Seamart parking lot.

The shoreline on a different day.

View of MEHS from Seamart's parking lot.

If we paid enough attention, we'd see dozens of float planes like this one every day.

Even McDonald's has a fantastic view of the marina from their main dining room!

McDonald's tabletop overlooking the marina.

I've talked about the view from our living room before, but here are better pictures:

View of Japonski Island (MEHS on the left), taken from our front porch.

MEHS and lots of sky.

And the view from Mt. Edgecumbe High School's parking lot is just as spectacular.

Marina and mountains viewable from MEHS Parking lot. (Look familiar at all? --Stephen)

Boat heading into the marina.

Same boat, different perspective.

O'Connell Bridge, as seen from MEHS.

Downtown Sitka.

More of the marina.

We spent an afternoon at the Old Sitka State Historical Park, just checking out plants and mussels that had washed up on the shore and skipping stones. These pictures were taken there:

A little bit of shoreline.

A dead tree on the pebbly beach.

More beach.

Sparkling water.

Just a beautiful day to be near the water.

Mountains and placid pools.

Seren trying to decide if the water is too cold to try out. (Hint: It is!)

Kind of reminds me of "One Morning In Maine."

Clear pools and water trickling down the rocks.

Driftwood.

More driftwood.

A small island nearby.

Throwing rocks.

Pretty little flowers in the grass.

Finally, here are just a few pictures taken from the downtown area:

O'Connell Bridge as seen from Baranof Castle.

Different perspective.

Totem Square.