Now, where was I....

Day 4 Sunday, May 18th:

Breakfast was always fun on board. Little bit of an issue with the "wet" almost runny scrambled eggs. But easy enough to pass them by and go for just the little Belgian waffles drowning in,,,,mooshed up berries. No added sugar, just berries and juice. Mmm mmm mmm mmm mmmmmmm. Now that was good. Course some in the crowd opted for eggs over medium...boring. French toast was nice ~ from what I heard. Why waste calories on normal food?

and then....JUNEAU!!!!! We docked right on time....11:00 am on May 17th. [snicker]

Here's an interesting tidbit about Juneau. There are no roads going in or out of town. To get to Juneau, one MUST arrive by ship or float plane. That amazes me. We are talking the State of Alaska's capital city!!! Also, make note of the pink-colored (salmon) federal building in the picture above. There was a major hullabaloo over whether or not it should remain pink or be changed when the city paints it. I can tell you it is badly in need of paint...any color. Turquoise blue from the 50's will do, but it needs paint. The town is up-and-coming...they just opened their first Home Depot,,,,and doodoodoodooooooo.....Super-Walmart!

We did manage to book all our excursions months ago to avoid the rush on the ship. Wise thinking. And we were so excited over our selections. Juneau held a "river float trip" down the Mendenhall River and a "salmon bake". Wahoody!

We went by shuttle bus to Mendenhall Lake. There in all it's glory was the Mendenhall Glacier. Beautiful. Rapidly melting these more recent 75 years. It is normal for glaciers to move back to the sea, but it is also normal for them to continue feeding themselves with winter freezes. Thats not happening now days at Mendenhall. It is slowly disappearing. We were greeted by a very handsome guide who came from the shoreline to greet us wearing board shorts and flip flops. Although we started our float in light rain it stopped after about 10 minutes and we did not see any more until we returned to Seattle. This was the first float of the year for the guide. He was from Newport Beach, CA, hence his attire. I just don't know how his feet survived the cold water he was wading in. We were very comfortable decked out in mud boots, rain pants, and slickers. Quite toasty actually. We went down a few rapids and spent the rest of the time looking for wildlife. Eagles flying! They are huge birds when you see them that close up. And ravens. Big black ravens. The RAVEN is an intricate part of Alaskan Folklore.

After a two hour nap back on the ship, we all headed out to the Salmon Bake. The was a beautiful waterfall on the stream there. Salmon run the stream. The singer finally quit singing, which was probably a good thing because there were those of us in the crowd that were getting the urge to howl. Kind of a Singing Nun Calamity Jane type. Go figure. Owwwww Wooooooooo.

And then, back to boat for a good night's sleep. Of course, we did stop at the Red Dog Saloon. Mighty nice.

Next up....Glacier Bay.