Today we're in Juneau. We had a note under our door (and an announcement over the loudspeaker at 6:45am(!)) that due to the extremely low tide, we couldn't dock at the pier. So we had to drop anchor in the bay and send people ashore on tender boats again. At 10:30 they were going to move to the dock which would take an hour to do (these big ships don't maneuver very fast) and if we didn't get off before then, we couldn't get off until 11:30. So we wanted to get down to the waiting room early and get a ticket for the tenders. (Again, the ones with shore excursions get to go first.) But this time, as soon as we went down about 9am, we were able to get right on the tender.
Our plan for the morning was to get a bus up to the Mendenhall Glacier. The cruise ship doesn't really provide information about on-your-own type exploration, only their paid tours (and all the jewelry specials in town). But we have a guide book and information I downloaded before we left, so we knew there should be transportation, but we didn't know how much it would cost. Not to worry. On the pier were a dozen kiosks with people selling various tours, but also shuttle tickets up to Mendenhall. They were only $8/person each way. So we got on a bus pretty quickly for the 25 minute ride up to the glacier.
The weather today is a bit Cooler, but the sun iS peeking out. We didn't need sunblock.
The national park is crowded with tour busses and others. This is the only glacier you can easily drive up pretty close to, so it's very busy. After a long wait in line at the restroom, we went up to the visitor center. It's at the top of a tall hill with lots of stairs up to it (there's also an elevator). We got in just in time to watch the 15-minute video about the glacier. It said that the glacier has retreated 2 miles since the 1930s. At that time, there was no lake at the glacier, but now there is a big lake full of icebergs.
We walked out to a photo point to view the glacier and then went on a longer trail through the woods to Nugget Falls, which is the closest you can get get to the glacier. Even though this was still about a mile away, the glacier was very impressive. (See photos.) On the trail, we saw beautiful windflowers, glacial erratics (boulders left by the retreating glacier), and rocks with scratches on them left by the glacier passing. Nugget Falls is huge and sprays a lot of water, so the view from here is a bit misty.
When we got back to the bus pick up spot we had just missed the next bus. There was a shuttle there from another tour company and the driver said he would take us back to Juneau for the tip. So we got to leave right away. He was much more talkative than the other bus driver and greeted us in his Native American language and told us a bit about the things we were passing. You can see a glacier on the hill behind the Walmart in town, which we didn't notice on the way out.
Back in town, we got lunch at a sandwich shop, grilled chicken for Sandra and crab salad for me. Then we got gelato and sat outside to eat it. The sit wasn't too pleasant because of all the tour buses going by. We spent some time in a souvenir shop then and found some tee shirts we liked.
Our afternoon tour was to go gold panning. See gold panning post.
We got back about 4:30 in time to do our afternoon thelassotherapy. We had decided to skip the dining room dinner for a change. So after getting out of our suits, we got sushi from the sushi bar for appetizers and sat in the poolside lounge chairs and had the cocktail of the day. It was an Ancient Mariner, basically two kinds of rum. But we had seen people before with poolside drinks with umbrellas and fruit, so Sandra asked the bartender to put umbrellas in our drinks because she knew I wanted an umbrella, but not the super sweet drinks they come with. So the bartender put an umbrella with a pineapple and cherry on the side of our drinks. They were very pretty and tasty as well. For dinner we ate in the cafe (steaks, but not as tasty the dining room steaks).
We went directly from dinner to get seats in the theater. We wanted to get better seats than we did last time. We got on the 4th row. The seats are comfortably upholstered benches with little tables placed strategically. Servers go around and offer to bring you drinks. We shared a vodka on the rocks. The show was a Broadway singer who did "Diva Moments." She sang some songs in her own voice, but did several medleys impersonating other divas. For example, she sang "The Wind Beneath My Wings" as Bette Midler, Celine Dion, Bernadette Peters, and others. She was quite good doing this and we enjoyed the show.
We went back to the room and worked on our blogs until bedtime.
No comments:
Post a Comment