Our next port of call was Juneau, so called because on the night that the townsfolk met to decide what to name the town, Joe Juneau bought a round of alcohol for everybody. Or at least that's what our cab driver told us. Anyway, the "city and burrough" of Juneau sounded a little boring for us, so we took a bus out to the Mendenhall glacier. By the way, if you are ever on an Alaska cruise and want to go to the glacier, do NOT use the city bus - it takes an hour each way and drops you off about 1.5 miles from the visitor's center, so you won't really have much time left over. here is a picture of us with the glacier in the background.
There were some "trails" we could take to get closer to the glacier, but they amounted to no more than a short walk along the beach to get a mile away from the glacier instead of a mile and a half. So, instead of doing that, we decided to take a walk in the rainforest. This is what a temperate rainforest looks like: (note that the ground is completely covered in green stuff - shrubs, mosses, and whatnot)
Along our loop trail, we encountered a small waterfall named AJ Falls. It's a good thing we stopped there and took some pictures, because for most of the rest of the trail, there was really nothing to see. Anyway, since the climb up was a little slippery, I left the camera with Julie and she took a bunch of pictures of me, including this one. I have a funny feeling that there is going to be a page of David climbing photos in this scrapbook, just like there was in the Utah trip scrapbook.
Like I said, there weren't many good views along the trail, so the wildlife had to pick up the slack a little. We saw a bear about 50 feet off the trail, and she had two cubs with her. You can kinda see the two cubs in the second picture. Julie took these pictures without freaking out at all, despite being a mere 50 feet from one of mother nature's favored instruments of death. Apparently, we were supposed to report the bears to the rangers at the visitor's center (which you had to pay to use), but we did not know that at the time, so we didn't. I hope nobody was eaten.
Speaking of Julie, I managed to get an action shot of her crossing a little stream while doing a little dance. We found it very strange that they built a staircase out of wood to go down a little hill, but then let the stream flow right across the trail. The return part of the loop trail had a lot of staircases, which was a pleasant relief after all the switchbacks we had done in Skagway and on the first part of the loop.
Anyway, after we took a cab back to Juneau, we shopped for a little bit and then went back to our ship. Our entertainment this evening was the "Newlywed Not So Newlywed" game show, which was a little on the dirty side. We were glad that they did not select us to participate. Let's just say we will never let the couple who had been married for 50 years housesit for us... or go camping with the couple that had been married for 32 years.
There were some "trails" we could take to get closer to the glacier, but they amounted to no more than a short walk along the beach to get a mile away from the glacier instead of a mile and a half. So, instead of doing that, we decided to take a walk in the rainforest. This is what a temperate rainforest looks like: (note that the ground is completely covered in green stuff - shrubs, mosses, and whatnot)
Along our loop trail, we encountered a small waterfall named AJ Falls. It's a good thing we stopped there and took some pictures, because for most of the rest of the trail, there was really nothing to see. Anyway, since the climb up was a little slippery, I left the camera with Julie and she took a bunch of pictures of me, including this one. I have a funny feeling that there is going to be a page of David climbing photos in this scrapbook, just like there was in the Utah trip scrapbook.
Like I said, there weren't many good views along the trail, so the wildlife had to pick up the slack a little. We saw a bear about 50 feet off the trail, and she had two cubs with her. You can kinda see the two cubs in the second picture. Julie took these pictures without freaking out at all, despite being a mere 50 feet from one of mother nature's favored instruments of death. Apparently, we were supposed to report the bears to the rangers at the visitor's center (which you had to pay to use), but we did not know that at the time, so we didn't. I hope nobody was eaten.
Speaking of Julie, I managed to get an action shot of her crossing a little stream while doing a little dance. We found it very strange that they built a staircase out of wood to go down a little hill, but then let the stream flow right across the trail. The return part of the loop trail had a lot of staircases, which was a pleasant relief after all the switchbacks we had done in Skagway and on the first part of the loop.
Anyway, after we took a cab back to Juneau, we shopped for a little bit and then went back to our ship. Our entertainment this evening was the "Newlywed Not So Newlywed" game show, which was a little on the dirty side. We were glad that they did not select us to participate. Let's just say we will never let the couple who had been married for 50 years housesit for us... or go camping with the couple that had been married for 32 years.
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