Our “fun day at sea” yesterday wasn’t fun for 50% of us. Pepper and Alex both succumbed to motion sickness and spent the bulk of the day lying on the couch or in bed, respectively, while their stomachs complained about the waves. Kaitlyn and I were completely unaffected; most of the time I hardly even noticed the rocking and swaying.
Today we arrived in Juneau. Alex and I watched as the ship pulled into port. The view from their balcony was amazing. Even more amazing was the weather: 60 degrees with beautiful blue skies. Our friends from Juneau had warned us before we left that May weather in Alaska is unpredictable, and could be anything from 35 and raining to 70 and sunny. We were fortunate to get the latter.
After disembarking, we wandered the streets for a bit. I stopped for a photo op at the Red Dog Saloon, which was a tacky tourist shop our Juneau friends had said was a “don’t miss”.
After a bit of confusion amidst thousands of tourists who’d come off the ship, we managed to hop aboard a shuttle bus that took us up to the Mendenhall Glacier area. Our driver was Tlingit and an absolute riot as he pointed out important historic sites like the McDonald’s. We arrived at the trailhead and started up to Mendenhall Lake. It was quite crowded, mainly because it’s a relatively short hike and ends at Nugget Falls, an enormous waterfall coursing into the lake. Here’s Pepper with the falls a half-mile beyond (they were packed with people and not very photogenic up close).
Mendenhall Lake had a number of ice chunks floating on it. Pieces of the glacier!
We found a few small ice chunks right along the shoreline too.
The glacier itself was inaccessible from the trail we were on; you had to take a helicopter tour to get there. But it was very pretty in the distance, and the wonderful weather helped make it a great day.
Another incredible dinner followed, and we watched a hilarious stand-up comic for the evening entertainment. I went topside to capture the sunset as we pulled away from shore on the way to our next stop.
