One week down, 24 to go!

So the week started off with a creaking door and a cloud of dust... and it was COLD!  The shop I will manage has been sealed up, with all the previous contents, parts, bikes, shirts, oh the shirts... in bins and plastic boxes for the winter season.  Which meant that I had the run of the place, to set it up as I felt it would work best, and with the usual amount of stuff that sells in a touristy town.

These are tour bikes, which live on trailers and will get tuned up once a week, 15 at a time, 6 trailers in the think of it.

Then, it snowed!  AGAIN!  I swear its like the 4th November for me.

Rental bikes got a little rain bath...and the shop went from BLAH....

to TAH-DAAAH!

Scotito knows a thing or two about organization, and marketing...

It was actually a really rewarding experience to set the place up and gave me a lot of ownership of the joint, which leaves me feeling more prepared to meet the summer.

And in order to do that, Loni needed a bath, a tune, and a fresh crappy coat of paint to hide all the dings and knicks she got trompsing around South East Asia.  Lookin good for a Sunday ride...

The road to Dyea (pronounced Di-ee) is half dirt and all beautiful!

add to my list of animals I have seen in the wold in 2013 -alaskan harbour seals, and wild swans...

Yes thats a frozen road, and I rode it anyways...

the green in trying to come out...

the tidal mud flats where the river meets the inlet, more on the geographic significance on this area later in the season.

amazing solitude out there today, a good three hours of roaming around, thinking and trying to take it all in.  This is home for a while, and with high food costs, not much of a social life, and not much else to do, you can expect to see a lot more pictures of the surrounding areas, cause if this place has one thing I can get into its being outside.  I just hope I get to be outside as much as I like.

S.

Back at it (finally)

What a winter it has turned out to be!  Since this blog is now closed to the general viewing public I will spare you from a repetitive catching up of events.  Suffice to say it has been one hell of a winter and I could not have ever had predicted I would be writing on this blog again, let alone sitting in the kitchen window overlooking the pristine snow capped mountain wilderness of Southern Alaska! 

From Italy to Southeast Asia, back to Italy for a few weeks before the next chapter is writ, it has been a tough journey for me.  From the difficult feelings of abandonment by the job in Italy, the confusion of not knowing whats next, to the excitement of adventure by bike with someone close to me, from the struggles therein with a bike journey across 3.25 countries and 2600+ kilometers (or Kilos as they are known to me and the missus) to the triumphs and laughter as well, from a difficult two weeks saying goodbye when I just did not feel ready, to a visit on American soil with good friends, to the lonely travels north to where I must live and work for the next 6 month this has been one of the most exciting and emotionally charged few months of my adult life.

Today I went for a tough ride in a strange and amazing part of the world and all that excitement and emotion came rushing out at the top of a mountain pass, roughly 3000 feet above the tiny sea-level town I will call home for the next 6 months.  I pulled over at the summit of White Pass and cried, for all that has been, for the promise of what is to come, for the beauty I feel I have lost and the beauty I felt surrounded by.  An amazing day that makes me feel like getting through this will only make me so much stronger for whatever is next.

Stay tuned for more, hopefully a post or two in Italian as I keep up with my lessons alone, and for more amazing pictures from Skagway, Alaska (which I still say with a sigh).

Most of all THANK YOU so much to all my friends for seeing me through tough transitions and celebrations alike.  I would not feel capable of doing this without the lovely thought of seeing you all again very soon.

ciao for now,
(Yukon) Scotito

Juneau Airport layover

  

My Reading Room and sleeping arrangements for the night

"Italian" all the way in Alaska...I think they mean Giovanni's

ferry boat ride the next morning up the "inside passage" to Skagway.  Did I mention you cannot drive to this town?

Inside passage

First Impressions (sigh)

first impressions indeed.  I dragged two bags strapped together, and a bike box about a mile to the house through deserted streets.

the kids call it the point

 

the view from my window

and then a bike ride today, just out of town...

and up towards White Pass, 15 miles or 24 kilo

Up into the glacier fields

and up through the trees

onto the moon like surface above tree line

past evidence of a long cold winter, that's a 3 meter high cut through the snow

to the summit.  2.5 hours of climbing, for about 20 minutes of downhill.

Loni looks COLD!

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is on the way downhill, I had to unfreeze my brakes, but the mountains in the far end of this pic are the ones out my bedroom window. 

 

 

 

 

 

2013...yes or no....

Should I restart this thing?  I mean I have some pictures to share, and the list of animals I have seen in the wild in 2013 alone is a staggering truth.  But In Alaska?  Should I record my thoughts?  What if someone wants to use them against me, if someone wants to make knee jerk decisions to the words here, someone with a position of power?  Are these not hallowed places for me to voice my opinion?  Do I not have the freedom of speech and press?  Questions questions questions......

all a big maybe....

S