A Temperate Rainforest

We live in a rainforest. Turns out it rains here, and all the cool kids wear waterproof everything. I thought the fashion was a little different than that of the "Lower 48" (a phrase I have now heard 432 times), but it turns out people just don't care about fashion here, just being warm and dry. Perfect for me. It is impossible to overestimate the percentage of Alaskans who own and wear "Xtratufs", the stylish boots pictured below. I will purchase mine as soon as I can find my way to Alaska's version of IFA.

I think the lack of vowels in the name really authenticates the boots.

So, like I was saying, it's a rainforest. Downtown Juneau butts up right next to two amazingly steep and beautiful mountains, which trap the clouds until they release all their moisture onto our heads, streets and xtratufs. Yearly precipitation is over 90 inches. However, if you take a stroll up to the Mendenhall Valley, only 8 miles away, precipitation is about 50 inches. Now we understand why the Tlingit natives in Mendenhall valley were so willing to let our white miners settle the area. 

The greater Juneau area houses about 31,000 people. Only 3,000 live in Downtown Juneau, another 3,000 live across the Gastineau Channel on Douglas Island, and the rest live in Mendenhall valley. I will join them in  the valley tomorrow, when I move into my real hotel. Yes. Someone changes my linens twice a week. My life is SOOOO hard.

Today I went on a waltz around Juneau. I insta-ed this picture whilst wandering. 

Yes, those are icicles hanging from the moss covered rocks.

Clearly Juneau is beautiful. You should come sometime. I'll give you a ride in my motorcoach. 

Today we were issued this beautiful uniforms. When I suggested to Amandass we should try them on and take a picture, she acted like she had just been waiting for someone to ask her to do that very thing, and jumped to action.

Well, after an amazing layover and adventure in Seattle, we flew into Juneau. We are currently staying at a hotel in "downtown Juneau" but it is not the hotel we will land in. Downtown is wonderful, and we shall certainly tell you more about that soon. When we arrived, we found all the high school students in our lobby- turns out our home was the site of the local PROM. Yes, we've already been to Prom. We are the coolest kids in town. We looked fantastic with all our our luggage and definite signs of a full day of traveling.

We met our dear roommate Jillian, who will certainly be a regular cast member of the blog, as we solidified today that she will be our roommate at the long term hotel in "the valley." Sunday we went to stake conference, then joined Jillian and her friend Eric, who gave us a great walking tour of the city and introduced us to many of our coworkers who are grand.

Today was our orientation day with the tour bus company, and a fanastic Family Home Evening with the local singles branch. Sidenote- we went with some coworkers, and literally tripled the number of attendees. The ward seems so welcoming and fun, and we played some pretty awesome volleyball (they have polynesains, so it was good). I'm now exhausted and going to bed, but hopefully more updates will come soon!