Juli Blog

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Last few Days (July 15, 16)
Well, we have a teenage now and Jaden is excited. He decided to have all the family to our place and order pizza, salad and make smores at the firepit. What a great night it was too. Previous to that we hiked a trail near the Mendenhall creek - a very rain forest, green trail. We went to the Salmon Hatchery which was really informative. I have never seen so many salmon in my life; swimming up the 450’ ladder to return “home” to lay eggs. The “imprinting” that salmon do is very interesting. Could be a research paper for someone in school - hint, hint. I have never seen as many eagles; bald, juvenile, and unknown as I have seen up here. Eagles are as abundant as the everyday magpie back home. They make a very distinct sound as well. My cousin Cathy pointed out the sound to us. We then hiked Lena Point/Trail. This took us into the rain forest too, and down by the water. We found mussel shells, beautiful rocks and the water is so clear you would put your feet in if it was even slightly warm (not today). We always see lots of fish jumping which is said to loosen their egg sac and help them lay their eggs.
Yesterday we spent the entire day on a boat touring along Tracy Arms and ultimately reaching South Sawyer Glacier. This glacier was huge and so beautiful; white and blue colors. We saw small calving (where parts fall into the Ocean/water). This glacier is 27 miles long and at this point we were only seven miles from Canada. Also, the entire Juneau area has more waterfalls than anyplace I have ever seen (surpasses Hawaii by far!). Here we saw lots of seals and their pups. Along the way we did see a whale spout, but not the whale. Another interesting fact to me is that Juneau is surrounded by many, many other islands and most seem uninhabited by our kind.
We have been downtown to Juneau several times now and while it is small (30,000) it is very spread out. We saw where Brian works at the University too. Get this, he can walk from his house to work in about 10 minutes.
The plan today is to go sea kayaking, hiking mixed In with geocaching. The sun is up, but not out again. The clouds are abundant here and beautiful. Juneau is in the Tongass rainforest (I did not know this before we came). Juneau has 262.2 miles of hiking trails and only 41 miles of roadways. Did you know that Alaska has one mile of road for every 42 square miles of land compared to the US average of one to one?

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