Juneau

Today we got up and ready to leave the boat by 11am. My Mom, Aunt and I went down to the Mt Robert’s Tram first since the mountain was clear as a bell and not a cloud hovering over it. So we bought our tickets and headed up. We went and saw the Eagle they have in captivity up there. It’s the same one I saw last time up there. It was shot by someone with a BB gun 3 years ago, and is now blind in one eye. It can never live on it’s own again, so it is being taken care of. We were taking pictures of the view down to the cruise ship docks and town, when one young woman in her 20’s asked if we would like a pic of all 3 of us, which we did. We ended up chatting with her and her friend (pic below) a while who were both crew on one of the Princess Cruise ships below. Both work in the kid care/activity programs. And one wants to be a nurse, so that gave my Mom and her something to chat about for a few. That same woman just spent a year in Amsterdam, now the season on a ship, then Italy for a year starting in Sept, then a year in Africa for a year after that to help medical personal over there. Talk about ambition. Anyway, we saw what there was to see, did the gift shop thing, and headed back down. It was probably 2:30pm at this point and we hadn’t had lunch, so we were hungry. We ended up at the ‘Twisted Fish Company’ near the cruise ship docks. My Mom got the halibut pizza, my Aunt the smoked salmon and baby shrimp pizza, and I got the coconut salmon strips and the salmon croquettes. Everything was AMAZING! After eating we bought our round trip shuttle tickets to Mendenhall Glacier. So hopped on one a few minutes later and away we went. The sky was amazingly blue today and really warm, which is a far cry from the weather the last time I was enjoying these sites. So the glacier was as beautiful as I remember, only a lot more crowded with people. We only stayed half an hour, then headed back to town for some last min shopping. I got some salmon jerky for my Dad as a thanks for dog sitting Nala, a small gift for each of my friend’s kids (a snow globe and a wooden sea plane puzzle kit), something small for my Great Aunt (a notepad) and a few little things for me like an xmas ornament of Santa sitting on top of a sea plane. We also had to stop and take pictures with the statue of patsy Ann. She was a dog that back in the 30’s and 40’s welcomed all the cruise ships and passengers to the docks. We ended back up at ‘The Hangar on the Wharf’ for our dinner reservations. I had a cup of clam chowder and the halibut fish and chips. YUM!! We then made our way back to the boat for the last time. We packed all of our stuff up once we got back. And now I am up at 11:30pm, alone, burning the rest of all of our pics and videos to CDs to take home with us. I think I have 2 more to go, at about 45 mins, and then I can crash. So I am sitting here looking out into the darkness of the marina surrounded by mostly fishing boats. And don’t think I haven’t mentioned it yet, but man are there some hot fisherman up here. Everywhere I turn… yummy. Maybe I should move. Anyway… ;-) So I am looking out a these boats named things like ‘Teal’, ‘Heather Rayne’, ‘Sea Breeze’, ‘Tyler Too’, ‘Schy One’, ‘Troika’ and ‘Stellar’. And then this HUGE yacht that just docked today named ‘Sea Czar’, which I thought was a clever play on words. I decided I should be up by 9am so I can look for anything I forgot to pack, call for the cab, have our goodbye waffle breakfast my Step-Dad is going to make for us, then head to the airport. We fly out to Sea-Tac just before 1pm, will have a nice layover there to grab dinner, and get all the way home around 9pm. It’ll be good to get home and see my dog and stuff, but give me a week and I will wish I was on vacation again.