adventures are fun.

Goodness! So, I officially fail at this blog. My apologies to the probable 15 people that actually read it. Not to make excuses, but I have been staying very busy. In my down time I simply just want sleep. It is now currently midnight:thirty here and I just woke up from a nap. Clearly, my sleep schedule is incredibly off. Why? Allow me to inform you.

About 5 or 6 days ago (it's so easy to lose track of the days here. They all start colliding together.) my roommates and I did something outrageous. It has been a dream of mine since last summer to summit one of the mountains here in Juneau in time to watch the sunrise in the morning. Now, quick reminder, we live in Alaska where the sun doesn't set until 11pm and rises at 3am. I casually mentioned the idea of hiking Mt. Roberts at midnight just a couple nights previous to it. Not thinking anyone would actually take me seriously, my roommates loved the idea and we made it happen two short days later. All my roomies are so wonderful. Always up for adventure, and I love it. So, that evening before our hike, Lynn, Alisha, and myself went climbing out the road while the others stayed home and baked muffins to indulge in once we reached the peak. Though the hike was definitely the highlight of my entire day, climbing that night was phenomenal. It was the most beautiful weather Juneau has seen. We could not have picked a more clear or better day to do everything. We got back from climbing around 11pm, changed, packed up our backpacks, and left the house again just after midnight putting ourselves at the trail head at around 12:20am. Now, at this point it was pretty dark, but it gave all of us an excuse to use our headlamps. I had done this trail multiple times, and already once this season, but we somehow managed to veer off the trail about 5 minutes into our hike. This seems to be the typical pattern when us girls are together. Not making it a big deal, we backtracked, and began on the right trail losing only 15 minutes. It was about 50 degrees that night, so naturally we layered up to keep warm, but it only took us a half mile until we were stripped down to our thinnest layer. We were thankful we removed them early because we were all drenched in sweat by the end of it. It allowed us some dry, warm clothes to change into at the top. So, 2.5 hours, 6 miles, and 4,000 ft later, we conquered Mt. Roberts just in time to see the sun peak up over the ridge line (while the moon was still out, i might add). We spent some quality roommate-bonding time at the top eating our muffins, giggling, taking pictures, and snuggling to stay warm. It was simply wonderful. It took us half the time to hike down. Exhausted and starving, we sat outside McDonalds for 20 minutes waiting for them to open at 6:30am. I ate one of the most satisfying meals of my life, came home, crashed, woke up a short 2 hours later, then headed off to work. That, right there, is why my sleep schedule has been so off this week.


Like I said before, my roommates are so great. We do just about everything together. We had an all girls camping trip on Thursday out at Outer Point on Douglas Island. We sat around the campfire, cooked burgers, and pitched tents right along the shore. I, however, slept in Courtney's hammock. I loved it so much, I couldn't resist purchasing my own from REI. Can't wait for it to get here so we can go camping again. The next day we made a huge Costco run to buy all the necessary household items in bulk. Our fridge, freezer, and pantry is packed full. We all love to cook and bake. I've never seen so many baked goods in my life, and that's saying something right there coming from a family full of bakers. There is literally something coming out of our oven every night weather it be cookies, brownies, muffins, or anything in between. They never last long.

Other things we have done in the past few weeks include: hiking the west glacier trail, exploring ice caves, cooked family dinner (tofu enchiladas), bonfires at the beach, play soccer on friday nights, wake up early to watch the world cup games, dance parties, hosted cookouts on our front porch, played games, watched orcas breach at sunset, and so much more. These girls warm my heart so much. So encouraging and uplifting all the time. I've never laughed so hard in my life. I find my abs sore the morning following a night spent all together. It's a beautiful thing. We even started a collective blog. I know, I know. My blogs are out of control. I'm not always good about updating mine, but there are 6 girls staying on track with this one, so check out our house blog for updates more frequently. www.gastineaugirls.blogspot.com

As far as work goes, it's been significantly slower than last season. We lost 4 ships this year, and it's evident in our daily work schedule. However, we still seem to be managing a steady 40 hours a week. I'm now part-time camera girl. About once a week I get a break from guiding to take pictures of all the guests on the last zip line. It's a nice change of pace. The other day I brought my book and sat up 40 ft high in the tree just reading and waiting for zippers to pass by. I'm on camera tomorrow, or today I guess considering it's now 1:00am. However, it's going to be a wet one, so probably not as relaxing and enjoyable. It was gnarly up on the course today. We went so long without a good rain, it's now making up for it. I'm not complaining. We really needed this rain, but I just hope it's not another 2 weeks before we see the sun again.

I must try to go back to sleep since I have to get up for work just hours from now. I'll leave you with pictures, as always, and my youtube site. Check out this from time to time too for current videos I've posted. http://www.youtube.com/user/alexmichelevideos.