Inside a Cloud

After dropping off our nurse at the hospital, this is the walk we face, back "off the rock" as they say. The O'Connell Bridge is the only ground link between the main city center on Baranof Island and the hospital, university, and airport on Japonski Island. We are walking and talking, and when we pause to take this photo, we drop our phone. So when we reach the top of the bridge, and want to take another picture, we worry about dropping our phone again, because this time it will fall far down, irretrievable in the water.

Carefully, this is the view of Sitka Channel, looking northwest from the bridge. In the opposite direction, we can see the cruise ship that is docked in the sound across from our inn. Consulting a map, we can see that the most direct route to the hospital from our inn would be by boat. But we walk, and at least ten people pass either also walking or biking the bridge. This is a berry foot- and bike-friendly town.

The town also wakes slowly, or more accurately, according to the cruise ship schedules. Without the tourists, there is little reason for most of the shops to open early. Our ultimate destination -- the local library -- doesn't open until 10am, so we have ninety minutes to pass in town. After a short trek, we can take another picture looking back across Sitka Channel at the bridge we just crossed.

A mist rolled into the city while we waited. Nothing seemed to get wet, yet the droplets could be seen floating through the air. Later in the day, the mist came a little heavier. The weather condition was not really rain as much as it was wet. The driver of the public transit called it being inside a cloud. And so it is. When we returned to the inn, we couldn't even see the water in the sound, for all of the cloudy mist.