Cruising: Day Three- Juneau

[derekl_1963]

Sorry for the delay, but editing photos and trying for quality writing has turned out to be much harder than I thought - leading to a bit of writer's block. I do want to finish this series, both to share the trip with my friends and to fix the memories in my own mind. Happily, I kept a daily journal, which makes this all so much easier.



Today started with our one foray into the buffet for breakfast... What a circus! After this, we had breakfast either in the restaurant that was open for suite passengers or from room service.

After breakfast it was out onto the deck to watch the scenery go by....



The one picture I got that even comes close to conveying the scale of the scenery... The cruise ship in the center is a thousand feet long, and I could cover it with the tip of a finger. The whole photograph I could have covered with two hands...



Sometimes I looked at the scenery and words simply failed...

We also saw a number of whales (probably Orca) as we sailed into Juneau, but several attempts to get photographs failed. So I gave up and just enjoyed the scenery.



Arriving in Juneau... The harbor was busy with ships arriving and departing all day, kind of like a huge bus terminal. The ship on the left is the Norwegian Star, waiting for us to sail past so she can depart. As soon as she did, the Captain turned our ship through 180 degrees and slid right into the same berth before the waves from the Star's departure had even settled. Afterward, since again my ears were frozen from the wind, we headed to the spa and lunch since our tour didn't depart for two hours.

As a side note, on top of freezing my ears, I like to broke my wrist taking the photograph above. The best view of docking came from the topmost deck - which was surrounded with glass safety screens about 7 feet tall with about 4 inch gaps between the panes. To get the shot, I had to stick my hands and wrists through the gap with my body facing out the side of the ship but my hands turned so the camera was facing forward... One hand for the strap and another for the controls...

Remind me again why I keep choosing hobbies that involve getting cold and wet, being uncomfortable, or risking severe injury?



Our first steps on Alaskan soil - you can see our cabin too... The balcony and two windows pointed at by the fore end of the funnel. Off we go for a brief bus tour of Juneau and then to the Mendenhall Glacier.



Try as I might I could not get or edit into existence a picture that really showed the stunning view and colors... The sound track to this majesty was a waterfall off to one side of the glacier's valley. Absolutely breathtaking.

The smell - much less so. A salmon run had just finished, so the shores were littered with salmon corpses, half eaten salmon corpses, and bear poop.



Getting this picture was an exercise in frustration. Ahead of us was a family of tourists intent on getting every possible combination of family... Mom and Dad, Kid, Grandma, Mom and Grandma, Grandma and Kid, Mom, Mom and Grandma and Kid... and then doing it again with a different camera!. They took a break to figure out which picture(s) or camera(s) they had forgotten, and we snuck in and had ours taken.

It was amazing all week how people (including us) would just hand hundreds of dollars worth of cameras to complete strangers, asking them to take a photograph. Of course, there was generally a quid quo pro - somebody took a picture of you, then you took one of them.



One of the more awesome shots of the whole trip - just how hard life struggles to colonize lifeless places. Lichens grow on rock recently (about fifty years in this spot) exposed by the retreating glacier. Moss then grows on the decaying lichens and the minerals the the lichens have freed. The moss then decays into soil, and grasses and small trees take root in the cracks in the rock where soil collects...

One of the most amusing pictures of the whole trip:



Is this guy lost or what?

The answer turned out to be the bus companies ship older buses to Alaska and the drivers amuse themselves by setting unlikely destinations on the signboards. (For those of you reading this who are not from the Pacific Northwet... This is funny because a) the Kingdome stood nearly a thousand miles away, and b) was demolished a decade ago.)

Back in Juneau we took a cable tram to the top of Mount Roberts



From the top two giant cruise ships look like a pair of bathtub toys for giants... (Ours, the Pearl is on the left.) We spent a while hiking the trails and snagged one geocache, but failed to find another. A quick stop in the souvenir shop let me snag one of those head wraps like skiers wear - my ears would thank me for the rest of the week.

Dusk was falling as we waited for the cable car to head down, and view grew even more wonderful...



Our home for the week, shining through the cold like a giant Christmas ornament.

On the way down, some folks at the other end of the cab were complaining about how bad the seas had been the previous night... All I could do was think to myself... you civilians have no effin' idea.

Once on the streets of Juneau we were disappointed to learn that one shop Brenda wanted to shop at and the restaurant I wanted to eat at were closed for the evening. The other shop Brenda wanted to stop at was open, but turned out not to meet it's advertising - they had cheap but attractive crap and expensive but attractive crap.

So we headed back to the ship and had a late dinner in the steakhouse as the ship got underway... Excellent prime rib with a nice burgundy, and snifter of cognac as we watched the lights of Juneau recede. I was really impressed with the ship's Executive Chef, who stopped by the restaurant while we were eating. He didn't just pass through, but looked carefully around the open kitchen and scanned the diners before departing.

Back to our suite for a few relaxing moments watching some TV, and then to bed... it was late and tomorrow would be long.