July Juneau Update
Hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth of July. I have several fun adventures to share in this post beginning with Independence Day since that was the most recent. A Juneau Fourth of July celebration is one like no other I’ve experienced! The festivities began with Fireworks at Midnight. I have heard two reasons as to why the fireworks are at midnight, though I suspect that the truth is some combination of those reasons. The first reason, the one that was published in the newspaper, goes back to the mining days and the fact that miners only got two days off during the year—Fourth of July and Christmas. Thus the fireworks were held at midnight so that the miners would be able to enjoy them and it wouldn’t cause them to lose sleep. The second reason is, midnight is the only time that it is dark enough to see the fireworks! Now onto the adventure of going downtown Juneau to view the official fireworks. It was very much not what I expected from a capital city Fourth of July celebration.. There were people parked EVERYWHERE, they were on the side of the roads, parked in the median strip; basically, anywhere you could park a car, cars were parked. As I was driving to the parking lot, I noticed how many fireworks were being set off in the middle of downtown. People were shooting off fireworks wherever they felt like it. There were PILES of spent fireworks on the sidewalks from people shooting them off before the main event. I was even almost hit by a firework going off while waiting for the main event to happen. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!
After a few hours of sleep, I journeyed back downtown to witness the Fourth of July parade. It was not a huge parade, but a very nice one and very much in the spirit of the Fourth of July. The holiday ended with a small cookout at Auke Rec (which is an outdoor area on the water with picnic shelters out the road by Auke Bay) with some of my fellow coworkers. It was great to be outdoors, watch the ocean waves and hang out while eating ribs, creamed corn, homemade brownies and other goodies.
Attending Sled Dog Summer Camp was my other big adventure. This was a two plus hour escape from the city to a location where there are over 100 sled dogs training during the summer. It was awesome to go for a short sled dog ride on their special cart (kinda like a golf cart without a motor), followed by the opportunity to meet the dog team and then go see the puppies! The puppy I got to meet had been snoozing. Once he was handed to me, he took one look at me and went back to sleep (as you can see in the photo). He snoozed the entire time I held him (about 20 min) so fast asleep his feet were twitching. It was so much fun to spend time with the dogs and have this new experience.
I hope everyone is doing well and having a good summer! I have finalized the dates for my next trip to Southern Illinois, so please reach out to Mother if you would like to visit while I am in the area.
