Alaskan Adventures (not your typical AA): birthday, alaskan style!

my 23-year-old self sure has had a lot of cake in the past few days :)

in the evening before my birthday, my coworker H cooked all the girls in the house and i a delicious thai meal, and then brought out a surprise cake and all the clients sang happy birthday and then blew silly string all over my face! even better, we later took the girls out to watch the stars since the night was absolutely dark and the sky absolutely clear, and i learned that the constellation orion is NOT the bigger dipper after all, and that the little dipper is way littl-er than i could ever have imagined! it was already a great b-day even before the b-day.

the next day, after having worked since 8am, i got was ready to continue the celebration with my favorite people in town. B had a very minty surprise for me, along with another lovely dinner and chocolate cake, and the best present ever -- "90 Short Walks around Juneau," which pretty much has every hiking trail mapped and described, even "short walks" of up to 20 miles round-trip! then B, L, G and i all played several competitive rounds of darts, as well as other activities not appropriate for 4th graders :P

in conclusion: the alaskan birthday was filled with good food, great fun, and lovely friends -- so not SO different from lower-48 birthdays after all :P

BONUS: 3 days of pure sunshine in a row!

same glacier (as "a black and white glacier") under the sun

how a glacier recedes as "flakes" of ice plunges into the lake

you can sort of see the blue "flakes" in this photo

i followed a trail to a waterfall!! the left half of the waterfall is flowing water; the right half is frozen

the trail was solid ice, but surprisingly not slippery at all! and the views along the way were well worth the effort:

same guy in the red jacket as the one in the waterfall picture. poor dude probably thought i was stalking him. but it was really the pop of color provided by his jacket that i was stalking