Day 3—Juneau

Some of the scenery near Juneau.  Yeah, Alaska is kind of beautiful!

Getting into Juneau at 10AM seemed like a good reason to sleep in a little.  Our tour was to be at 1:30PM, so we took it easy and just made sure to find our way to lunch by Noon, and ate by the pool.  We headed to our planned tour, a canoe to the face of Mendenhall Glacier.  We were really looking forward to it, since we didn’t get very close to Hubbard.  We boarded the bus, and sat about 5-10 minutes, and then they came on to tell us, the tour was canceled due to “weather”.  It was a beautiful, sunny, warm day.  But, the warm air on the water and the cold air off of the glacier made for rough waters, enough so to tip the canoe.  It happened that we were able to book our second choice, a “river raft” ride, for later in the afternoon.  We meandered around the Juneau “shopping” area near the pier for an hour or so. 

The water was 36F, but this dog was quite happy to play in it!

Arriving at the site for the beginning of the river tour, we were directed to don the waders, and rubber boots.  A classy look, to be sure!  They asked who wanted to paddle and who wanted to “just ride”.  Although Theresa wanted to paddle, she took a middle seat so others could paddle.  We headed out into the lake, and got some good views of the glacier and a waterfall from Suicide Glacier, so named because it is very high, and breaks off huge (half mile) chunks of ice at a time.  Our guide taught us how to paddle (in unison) and he would call out when to paddle forward, backward, or stop.  We spent more time not paddling that actually working, but that was part of the deal, I guess.  (The canoe would have been all paddling!) 

Ready to ride!  (Aren't those waders flattering?)

Mendenhall Glacier (and Suicide Glacier on the mountain)

The waterfall is from Suicide Glacier.

On the water with our guide (an Aggie from Houston).

Splashing through the rapids!

Eventually, we got to our first rapids, and it was a 20 second burst of excitement, followed by several minutes of calm and scenery.  We had about 4-5 fits of rapids, and were told initially it would be 1-1.5 rating for rapids, but our guide (at the end) said it was more like 2-3.  It was out first time in rapids, so we can’t judge.  We did get a little wet though.  The waders work great until the water splashes over the midrift, and then, well, you’re sitting in a puddle of water inside your rubber overalls!  But we had fun!  On the way back, we learned a little bit about the history of Juneau.  Joe Juneau, and some other guy were sent up to investigate claims that there might be gold in them thar hills.  Well, they convinced the local people to show them where, and in a little over two days they had over 200 lbs of gold nuggets about the size of a small finger.  So, word got out quickly, and in two weeks there were tent cities in the area of people looking for their fortunes!  We saw quite a number of bald eagles, including watching one land about 200 feet away from us.  But, it was difficult to get a good picture.  There were even several sitting on light poles during our ride back!

I think there is an Eagle, but where??

There he is!!

After we got back, we changed into dry clothes, and headed up to the buffet for some Italian food.  They had fresh made pasta that was amazing!  And we tried a variety of interesting foods and drinks.  After dinner, there was a show by a local guy who sang, played piano, told some jokes etc.  Theresa enjoyed it.  We closed out the night with a nice nightcap!