Le Voyage -- Capitol stop

Did Juneau?

(Feel free to groan at the attempted pun.)

Early morning Juneau

Juneau today. I spend some time in the morning dealing with an issue at work -- my sub for my duties having to handle those responsibilities for the first time without me to coach her along. She's very smart, so I figure she'll be able to handle it.

After breakfast we have a couple of hours before we're supposed to hop a bus for the Mendenhall Glacier, so we hot foot it the mile into town, emerging, of course, in the touristy, shop-filled section. Part of our walk takes place on the Sea Walk, a boardwalk that runs alongside the bay.

The only bald eagle we got a shot of.

The weather is overcast and foggy -- enough so you can't see the tops of the surrounding mountains, and the tramway that takes visitors to the top of one mountain disappears on it way up. But the sun occasionally peeks out when the clouds thin. The last long-range forecast I looked at before we left on this adventure predicted this day to be rainy, but we are spared that. In fact, the weather turns out to be pretty pleasant most of the day.

We spend some time looking at the tourist shops, but one thing we want to do is find a drug store to pick up a couple of items we forgot/failed to include enough of. You have to move away from the street where the tourist shops are, but we find one.

On the way we check out the state capitol, which Sharon insists looks like a library, see a bear statue -- the closest we'll come to seeing a bear -- and check out a curious set of blackboards that encourage passersby to write what they hope to do before they die. One wag wants to "Bring chalk 4 this," which I guess was accomplished. Another wants to have breakfast with Sarah Palin, which the writer claims was done.

What do you think? Library or capitol building?

What do you want to do before you di?

Another wants to "leave Juneau." This would involve more than just hopping in the car and driving off. The only ways in or out of Juneau are by water or air. A rather extensive ferry system operates in Alaska; still, you don't just decide, I think I'll pop over to (fill in the blank) the way we do in much of the lower 48.

We also encounter on our ramblings about town a sight I've not seen in America in a while -- a bank of pay phones. And a man is actually using one of the phones! Amazing.

When the time comes, we trek back to the dock to pick up our bus and head out for the Mendenhall Glacier. You'd think we'd seen enough of glaciers, but this one impresses nonetheless. A sign at the visitor center notes that in the '30s, you would be able to touch the face of the glacier from that spot. The face is now a little over a mile away.


We take a trail down to the edge of the lake that formed in front of the glacier after its retreat. The path also leads to a gigantic waterfall you can walk right up to. The sound of the falling water drowns out every other sound -- you can't hear conversation unless the person talking is standing right next to you. I have some video I'll eventually process and post.

Lower part of the falls at Mendenhall Glacier

We're scheduled to spend a couple of hours in the area, and in the morning I wondered what in the world we were going to do for that long. Turned out to not even being close to enough time. After our return from the waterfall, Sharon goes back to the visitor center to look for a hiking badge, while I look for one more scenic vantage point. I find a spot next to a stream and note that salmon are chasing each other around in the water. A woman leading a group down to the same area says they're sockeye.

When the time comes to leave, we reboard the bus and head back for town. On the way we drive over a stream and see hundreds of salmon leaping from the water on their way to their spawning grounds. Neither of us is fast enough with a camera to take a picture.


I keep thinking each day that we just cannot have as good a day as the one before, but so far I've been wrong, wrong, wrong.

Back on board I snooze out for a bit. When I wake, Sharon's sitting in a chair watching our passage out of the bay through the balcony door, and shortly after  she cries out that she saw something in the water. We grab our cameras, and sure enough several groups of something swim by. We're shooting like mad, and when we look at them after, the photos confirm my suspicion that we've seen orcas. Sharon's shots are really good, and I don't believe I've ever seen her more excited about pictures.

Orcas!

Later she spots activity on the far shore, either splashes or blows or both, but we can't get a good picture because it's so far away. Sharon does have a shot showing something dark in the water along with the cloud produced by a blow, and we wonder if we might have seen some humpback activity.

Soon enough we're not seeing any more activity, so we clean up and dress up a little for formal night. After supper, we have our picture made and go to the late show. Afterward, we turn on a movie in the room, but that doesn't last long. We're just too tired to stay awake.