"I've never seen it not on my plate."

Downtown Juneau, photo messed with by Gavin's new favorite photo effect: "Tilt Shift."

Today was our only free day in Juneau, so after checking out of our hotel, we headed downtown for breakfast. The town seemed pretty deserted, but we found a little bagel place called Silverbow Bagels to have breakfast. I had a rather sinful french toast bagel sandwich with chedder cheese and eggs. After breakfast, it seemed that the whole town was still asleep, despite that it was after 10am, so we headed out of downtown to visit the Mendenhall Glacier.

Silverbow Bagels. Can you find me in this picture? (Gavin didn't even notice I was posing in the picture while he was taking it!)

A couple of our first sights in Juneau: a cruise ship and a sea plane.

The Mendenhall Glacier is very close to Juneau, only about a 20 minute drive from downtown. We drove to the parking lot in front of the visitor's center, and walked to the viewing platform for our first view of the glacier, its lake and Nugget Falls, a large waterfall fed entirely by the waters of melting glaciers! We walked down to the edge of the lake to take pictures and feel the chilly water. We tried to walk along the thin beach for a bit, and we met some Japanese tourists who helpfully told us "It's a dead end. Well, it's not dead, but it's an end." Something must have been lost in translation, but it made us giggle. :) We then walked the two-mile trail over to Nugget Falls, which was much bigger than it looked from farther away. It was amazing that the entire waterfall is fed by melting ice!

The Mendenhall Glacier. It is hard to see how huge it is from just a picture.

On the trail to Nugget Falls.

Gavin and I in front of Nugget Falls - all that water is from the melting of glaciers!

Standing on the beach beside Nugget Falls, in front of the glacier.

After viewing the glacier, I noticed a "salmon viewing" platform next to the parking lot. We were able to see salmon spawning in the little creek below the platform. I said to Gavin, "Hey, this is the first time I have seen salmon not on my plate!" :) We also saw a huge porcupine sitting in a tree about ten feet above our heads.

I didn't know salmon were so brightly colored!

After seeing the Mendenhall Glacier, we had planned to do a 3.4 mile hike with lots of pretty views, but I realized I had messed up the timing - the hike was 3.4 miles ONE WAY, so no way we would be able to do it in the two hours we had left before our flight. We walked to the edge of Mendenhall Lake to take a few pictures, and we caught sight of a bald eagle sitting in one of the trees. Since we didn't have time for the hike, we headed back to downtown Juneau to see if it had livened up a bit.

As we pulled into downtown, we noticed there were now FIVE huge cruise ships in the harbor, and the town was completely transformed into a busy, crowded place with all the passengers wandering around and shopping. We first headed to The Rookery, a cute little cafe, for a brief lunch, then we joined the throngs of people wandering around and exploring the shops. I happened to see a store with a shirt that I had to buy:

Not every day I see a shirt referencing my favorite childhood animated movie... :) In case you can't read it, it says " The Last Unicorn... was so tender and buttery!"

Other than that, it was just basic cruise-ship fare - bunches of jewelry, t-shirts, etc. (Gavin said it we took out the mountains in the background, it would look just like St. Thomas, Virgin Islands) There were also a couple fur stores, which I had fun checking out, as I had never seen a store dedicated to expensive fur coats before. Gavin found a store with remote control airplanes and played with the simulator with little success. I told him he probably shouldn't buy an actual remote control plane if he couldn't keep the simulator in the air for more than 10 seconds... :) I bought a large chunk of some REALLY tasty fudge, and next to the fudge shop I found the following sign:

People should really check the urban slang dictionary, especially when they are planning on naming their business anything to do with a "hole."

After exploring the town, we headed to the airport to await our flight to Gustavus. We had tried to check in online in the morning, but the website didn't have that particular functionality, and when we arrived at the airport we noticed even more differences from our usual air travel experiences. When we checked in, the attendant didn't ask to see our ids, and she didn't even issue tickets; she told us the captain would call our names! There was no security, no search of our liquids, no taking off our shoes, etc. It was refreshing! :)

Waiting for our Seaport Airlines flight, we near a TV playing the Weather Channel, which happened to be airing a special on, of all things, PLANE CRASHES. I watched several different video representations of just about every major plane crash for the past several years. I am generally not scared of flying, but that is frankly the last thing I want to see on TV before boarding a tiny little plane...

Our plane held at most held ten people plus the pilot. The seats were almost like sitting in beach chairs - a metal frame around one layer of cloth, and WELL WORN. But the flight was probably one of the most beautiful I have ever taken. Since the plane was so small, it stayed well below the cloud level, flying at about the level of the mountain peaks that surrounded us. The scene was ocean water in the bay, snow-capped mountain peaks, clouds surrounding the peaks at various levels, plus a bit of blue sky visible through the clouds. What a lovely flight!

I'm ready to fly! :)

The view from under the wing.

Our tiny little plane. Gavin is convinced the captain (unloading the bags) is checking out my backside in this picture. :)

We landed in Gustavus, and our rather talkative shuttle driver took us to the Glacier Bay Lodge where we were spending the night before taking a boat trip in the morning. After settling into our room, we had dinner in the lodge's restaurant, and I FINALLY had a salmon dish I enjoyed - a pan-seared salmon with a bit of port-reduction sauce, and it was perfectly cooked - not overdone, yay! The portions were pretty small, so Gavin and I both were hungry for dessert; we shared a tasty carrot cake.

Fireweed: a few blooms left, but most has "turned to cotton."

I also tried a fireweed martini; an Alaskan vodka distiller makes vodka from all kinds of local produce, including this particualr weed, which has been mentioned to us repeatedly throughout our vacation here. The fireweed is named because it is the first thing to grow back after forest fires. It blooms cute little fuscia blossoms that look a bit like phlox for the entire summer, starting at the bottom of the stalk and moving towards the top at the end of summer, then finally "turning to cotton" in the fall. (one of our taxi driver quoted, "Once the fireweed turns to cotton, summer soon will be forgotten!") But I digress... The martini itself was like drinking turpentine; it was straight up vodka with nothing mixed in. I don't think I actually got to taste the fireweed itself since it was overshadowed by the booze. But it was still fun to drink the weed/flower I had been admiring throughout our trip. :)

After dinner we headed back to our room to have an early night. Tomorrow we have a 7:30am early start; we will take a cruise of Glacier Bay National Park!

 

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