Work has been going well for me and I still don't have any complaints. I like what I do and it seems like I'm good enough at it because I haven't been fired. I like my little routine and the people I work with so it's all good. I got this awesome french press mug from REI that I keep at my desk so every morning I get a nice, fresh cup of my favorite coffee to start my day. The sunrise is always breathtaking and it's starting to creep earlier into the morning hours. Pretty soon it'll be over with by the time I even get to work! The sunset is already much later and I actually get to enjoy it during my drive home. Definitely a perk of my little "commute".
We spent last weekend up in Houston with Mammaw & Bill and it was so nice to get away for a couple days. We love staying at their little house in the woods where you can't hear traffic and can see only trees and lakes for miles. Last week it was the coldest that it's been since we got here - only a few degrees above zero as the "high" - but it didn't really stop us from spending time outside. Bill got their dogsled out of storage so Remy could strap on the harness and give it a shot and she did pretty well! She was a little wary of the tension of pulling the thing around but finally figured it out toward the end. She'd make a good sled dog if we had another dog show her how it's done!
We had today completely free and wanted to go adventuring to somewhere we haven't yet been. We started off with a relaxing Saturday morning of fresh coffee and an episode of a show on Netflix called Departures that we really like then headed to Harley's Old Thyme Cafe on Old Seward for a late breakfast. We like that place because a) they have really good coffee, b) it's close to our house, c) the service is really fast, and d) we can get out of there with spending less than $20! The food is also delicious but we're both breakfast people so any breakfast is basically a good breakfast in our book. Garrett surprised me with a Valentine's Day CD he made with all of my favorite love songs - including the one we first danced to way back in 2006 at the Sweetheart Dance I asked him to and our "first dance" song at our wedding - so, needless to say, I was touched. We listened to it during our drive past Eagle River to Thunderbird Falls where we planned to hike with Remy. Neither of us have been there but we see the sign whenever we head to Mammaw's so we figured it'd be worth a shot. Despite the "warm" temperature - about 35 degrees - not many people were at the trailhead so we took full advantage of letting Remy run around like a wild thing. The lookout was only about a mile up so it wasn't much of a "hike" but definitely worth the outing. I don't even know how to describe the falls! Basically everything was covered in a thick layer of barely-blue ice. From one angle it looked opaque but from another it looked turquoise. It protruded from the carved-out crevice in giant frozen blobs of tiered crystals. The only thing that revealed it's hidden identity of a waterfall was discovered with sleuthing eyes. If you knew where to look, you could see the water moving beneath the cascading shelves of ice. Once you saw the phenomena in one spot, you began to notice other movement occurring behind the scenes. The waterfall was in full motion. It was a waterfall in a silent movie. All sound was contained behind a giant sheet of irregular glass that clung like a thin layer of plastic wrap. The water surged out of the bottom of its prison into a small pool then rushed back into covertness once more, this time beneath our feet. You could hear it gurgle and feel the ground pulse as the gallons of fresh mountain water moved along its precise course to who knows where. There were spots along the trail where it looked like the water had seeped above ground to create slippery ice sculptures of blue and green hues. To get the the falls, you had to crouch to pass under the willow-like branches laden with glittery chunks of ice and snow - forming a sort of wonderland tunnel that led you to the magic of the frozen falls. But still there was no sound except for the activity under our feet. No matter how close you stood to the 200-foot-tall falls, the most you could hear was a slight gurgling and some curiously-timed splashes. It was beautifully eerie.
We drove around Eagle River a bit afterwards after stopping for a warm beverage and got to explore the other side of the mountains we're so used to seeing in Anchorage. It's so gorgeous back there yet so remote. I would not want to make the drive from there to Anchorage every day yet some people definitely do. It reminded me of Montana with the land surrounded by mountains and pines but I'm sure it transforms into a whole new kind of terrain in the summer. There's a lot more water up here! When things are green, they are GREEN. I'm excited to making that same drive in a few months.
Garrett heads to Georgia next week for his cousin's wedding and unfortunately I wasn't able to join him. Tis the life of a tax accountant - no travel during busy season! Luckily we have our trip in May to look forward to!
