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Published: August 26th 2015
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Hello from Juneau Alaska – state capital of largest state in the nation. By contrast, Juneau itself is comparatively small with only about 32,000 residents. But I’m getting ahead of the story.
The ship arrived in port about 7:00 and we did not have to be ashore until 8:30, so we had agreed to meet the Sieberts for breakfast at 7:30. There were quite a few other people doing the same thing so it was fairly crowded in the Horizon Court. After last night you might think that we couldn’t eat much today, but we did a commendable job being able to select as much of anything we wanted from the buffet. Certainly we did not leave the ship hungry.
We found our bus and the driver (Levi) drove us through town first. We saw the state capital building (voted 50
th on the list of most interesting capitals), the schools, and some other places. The local Walmart was pointed out to us with their “every day lowest pricing” being the highest in the country. There was a McDonalds which did not have a Dollar Menu but instead a Two Dollar Menu (for the same items
as elsewhere). We saw the Subway shop where the advertised $5 sub cost $8.75 (but they don’t feel a need to rename the products). Gasoline costs about $3.75 a gallon. So why is everything so expensive? Because there are no roads that lead to Juneau – everything has to come in by ship or air, so shipping adds a lot to everything you buy here.
The bus took us to a small pier outside of town where we boarded a catamaran for a cruise of the local channel and around some of the islands. The purpose was to look for whales and we spotted some within the first 15 minutes. These were Humpback Whales and we watched about a 8 of them in various locations around the boat as they blew jets of air before coming to the surface and then diving again. For the most part we saw more backs than anything, but it was very interesting. David and Jim moved up to the 3
rd (top) deck for watching while Janet and Kathy mostly watched from their inside seats on the first deck.
During the cruise we proceeded to
several different locations and we saw whales in each place. There was never one of them soaring into the air before splashing back into the sea, but it was a lot of fun watching them anyway. We had as much coffee, tea, or hot chocolate as we wanted, as well as being able to buy sodas or beer. They also served samples of smoked salmon and some local jellies on crackers during the cruise.
About noon they took us to an island where they had a Salmon Bake and we had Silver Salmon and/or chicken, along with salad and vegs and brownies for dessert. We were there an hour and had a very good lunch. Jim and Kathy even got the recipe for how the salmon was cooked. They had a small gift shop buy we didn’t buy anything there. After an hour they rang a bell and everyone had to report back to the boat for the return trip to the pier.
Our bus was waiting for us and it took us to the Mendenhall Glacier. Our weather had been excellent all morning during the whale watch and it
David & Janet
Leaving Salmon Bake continued throughout the afternoon. We had comparatively warm temperatures and bright blue skies all day. That made viewing of the glacier much more enjoyable than the people a week before who had heavy rains and strong cold winds to contend with. So we were quite lucky.
The glacier is one thing we had seen 11 years before and by comparing photographs of then versus now, it was clear that the ice field had receded by a large distance. There was also a small waterfall back then, but now there is a large waterfall (called Nugget Falls) with a heavy flow of glacial melt water. Also the new falls are further back from into the glacier area. The glacier is an impressive view, but it is considerably smaller than before. While David and Jim went out the path (about a mile each way) to Nugget Falls, Janet and Kathy went to the Visitor’s Center and watched a movie about the history of Juneau. They found the movie very informative, as were the displays in the center.
We all boarded the bus again and were driven back to ship. We chose the
Kathy & Jim
leaving the Whale Watching boat option to get off in the town and we added to today’s activities by taking the gondola ride up to the top of Mount Roberts, which overlooks Juneau. The views were terrific (especially with such a bight clear day). Jim and David headed off on the walking trail up to some higher viewing points while Kathy and Janet went to the visitor’s center there too and watched another movie. About 4:30 we got in the line and headed back down the mountain (with 3 ships in port there were a lot of people heading down just before the dinner hour). We got down the gondola ride about 5:10 and we walked back to the ship (about 1 ship length). We had had a very interesting but somewhat tiring day.
We went pretty quickly to the dining room for “dinner with Josephine”. Both tonight and last night there have just been the four of us – Richard and Shirley haven’t been eating with us lately. We had a variety of delicious appetizers and soups/salads, followed by an intermezzo of strawberry sorbet. For the main courses, Janet and Jim each had the Diver Scallops, Kathy had the
Jim
at Mendenhall Glacier Chicken Dinner, and David had the Pork Loin Dinner. Once again everything was delicious. For dessert Kathy had another serving of the strawberry sorbet while the rest of us had Chocolate Lovers Delight. Anyway, we really enjoyed the dinner after a very active day.
The show in the Princess Theater was a song & dance performance by the ship’s singers and dancers. They had just recently arrived on the ship and this was their first performance. The show was called Stardust and consisted of a collection of old love songs from back in our parent’s generation, but which we knew very well. It was nicely done and we enjoyed it (at least the three of us who stayed awake).
Tomorrow Jim and Kathy are heading on a different excursion than Janet and David, and the need to leave the ship much earlier than us. So that wrapped up the day’s activities. All in all we had a good time in Juneau. FYI, there should be about 8 pictures today
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