Aki dislikes baths. Does she know that I chose this walk over the Sheep Creek delta as a pre-bath treat. The flood tide has yet to cover the broad expanses of sand. My little dog charges down the beach after her beloved Frisbee. A handful of gulls hunt areas of died back grass for food. Just offshore, two bald eagles perched on the number 2 navigation marker, watch Aki run down her Frisbee. The promised rain hasn’t arrived and only ghosts of fog obscure the channel-side mountains. Small ponds and potholes capture most of the beauty from the snow-covered mountains. But my favorite view is of the edge of snow pack carved by yesterday’s nineteen-foot high tide.

“Aki, what is it like to live in a Christmas card? The little dog, just freed from 10 days at the doggie hotel, ignores my question and rushes down the trail. She zooms up the crusty mountain meadow trail, dives down and rubs the sides of her face on her first snow of the winter. Thinking she misunderstood my question, I restate it: “Aki, what is it like to live in a landscape so like the images on Christmas cards?” Popping up from her snow bath, she shakes away my question with the snow caught in her fine fur. Looking at the frosted bull pines that stand over the snowy meadow and the strips fog that underline the all-white mountain ridge above, I say, “Well, I like it fine enough you little brat.”

I watched my first sunrise of advent this morning. Without clouds to inhibit it, the sun popped out of the waters of Gastineau Channel like an angry orange god. It looked ready and capable to melt away the six-inch layer of snow that covers the ridge. Experience tells me that the sun won’t shift the snow without help from the rain, which is scheduled to make an appearance soon.

 Thick ground fog hampered our plane’s landing last night and made it hard to see the new snow covering Juneau. On the ride home from the airport I pondered how we were going to get through the snow to reach our front door. There was no need to worry. One of our neighbors had already dug a path. Am I naive to find hope for peace in such an act of kindness?

   Aki didn’t see the sunrise and hasn’t pockmarked the snow with her tiny paws. She spent the last 10 days in a dog hotel while her humans visited family and friends in Washington D.C. I’ll spring her when the hotel opens its reception desk at one this afternoon. Then we will go one an adventure to celebrate the return of the winter sun.