Day 3 Admiralty Dream at Juneau

Photos

Monday, September 2, 2013

I woke up a little past 5am this morning and saw some blue and pink sky out the window with a bright crescent moon visible. I was so pleased to see sky, moon and mountains that I got right up. Clay was not far behind. We seem to be much nearer civilization than we were yesterday. It looks like it might be a beautiful day today. The sky is clear and there are snow-capped peaks in the distance. Lovely. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for a beautiful day (or a row of them here). Well, we can see Mendenhall Glacier in the distance so I’ll sign off for now and be back to report on the day.

Clay had pancakes for breakfast. I had raspberry yogurt, one fried egg with bacon and English muffin. We sat with a couple from the South Island of New Zealand and we heard again about our visiting the wrong island. Maybe one day in 2015 we’ll make it right.

The bus to Mendenhall Glacier was to depart at 8:30am and it was late leaving. Clay and I went out early to have a look around, though the boat’s staff really didn’t want to let us. Several people onboard blew off the included activities and did their own thing by flying somewhere for the day. I am not sure if Lee drove them where they needed to go or if they waited for cabs, but only Jon and Lynette came with the bus. There was quite a bit of confusion as Marge our bus driver had orders for one bus and 46 passengers and her bus would seat 52 but we have 62 ship passengers. It turned out that the people who went off to do their own thing left a seat or 2 empty. But by the time we left Mendenhall we had a 2^nd bus anyway.

We only had 1.5 hours at the glacier. We walked first to the bear viewing platform across the parking lot. As we arrived we met a local woman who said she stopped every morning on her way to work and she led us along and told us about the red Sockeye salmon that had arrived in the Mendenhall stream on August 1^st. She said she had only really seen one bear around there each morning since and not every day. Anyway, the stream was really full today and everyone told us that yesterday was a terrible day in Juneau with very heavy rain. You could see how high the stream had been and she pointed it out. We looked with her but no bears feeding.

Marge had told us there was a baby porcupine hanging around the parking lot for the past week and to look up in the trees. We found him. Who knew porcupines climbed trees? He was sitting up there in the skinny branches pulling off leaves with his little paws and stuffing them in his mouth. Adorable.

Then we walked over to the Visitor’s Center and took photos of the lake, glacier and roaring Nugget Falls. I also used the restroom. We really had to race up and back to make the 2-mile trail round trip in 40 minutes or so and did not have time to see the film. Marge advised that it was really well done about the life of a glacier. We know all about them so hopefully we didn’t really miss anything.

We had 5 hours in downtown Juneau. Our next included option was the Mt. Roberts tramway. Alaskan Dream Cruises provided us with wristbands for the Mendenhall Glacier visit, with tickets for the Mt. Roberts Tramway and $20 vouchers for lunch. We had a choice of Baranof Café, Zen Asian (which was closed today) and The Hangar which is where we ate. There were 4 mega-ships in town today. A Princess ship was already docked and unloading when we arrived at 11am. We went up to Mt. Roberts in the first tram up when they opened at 11am. We shopped, watched a film on Tlingit life, saw an eagle in a big cage and walked a .5 mile Alpine Loop trail that wound up being almost entirely vertical up and down. There were some amazing views from up there today with the blue skies and bright, hot sun. We saw a bald eagle gyring overhead and watched it for a while. Clay decided to put his big lens on his camera and we both had our heads down for about 20 seconds to get it changed and when we looked back up the thing was just gone! We could see 10-12 mountain goats on neighboring Mt Juneau. We were up there almost 2 hours.

At the bottom again, we bought some kettle corn, watched seaplanes taking off and landing in competition with Celebrity's tendering operation and then went to lunch. I looked at another yarn shop with insanely expensive yarn that I did not buy and then we had lunch. Clay had a reindeer brat and sauerkraut sandwich and an Alaskan Brewing White Ale. I had a teriyaki beef rice and salad bowl and water. For dessert I had a flourless chocolate cake with fresh raspberries and Clay had vanilla ice cream. Our tab was $40.89 so we used up our $20 each. We weren’t even expecting that from ADC and it was a great gesture. We really appreciated it. After lunch we shopped a bit more. I haven’t found what I was looking for at a price I would pay. But I got another great apron today at the top of Mt. Roberts Tramway. It is covered with totem faces. We had planned to spend the bulk of our day today at the Alaska State Museum, but our bus driver to downtown, Smokey, said it was closed for Labor Day. Oh well, we are sorry to have missed it but we had a good day.

We were to meet the bus where it dropped us off at 4pm. At 4:15 or so we finally left missing a couple of people. Evidently they arrived in a cab a little before the bus did, no idea what happened there. We are on our way to Orca Point Lodge now for our dinner on private Colt Island. I am still full from our 2pm lunch so a protein bar should serve me just fine. I hope Clay gets his salmon and has room for it after our big late lunch. We should be there in about another half hour and I have no idea how long we are staying or what time we are leaving. We haven’t heard anything yet about tomorrow’s plans and since we’ll be off the boat for dinner I’m not sure how or when they’ll tell us. We have never gotten a daily sheet in the cabin as was promised. Oh, today when we got back to the cabin there was a 2012-2013 Alaska photographs calendar on the bed. Another nice gesture.

I packed 6 sweaters that are not coming home, 1 got left behind in Sitka, 2 so far onboard with 3 more to go. That should buy us all the space we need in the luggage for the trip home with souvenirs. I had put the sweater in the trash 2 days ago and it got removed and left on the floor. I put it back in the trash yesterday along with the one I had worn yesterday. Today they are gone, so I guess we got that figured out, thankfully.

That kettle corn I got in Juneau is awful! I wish I had only gotten the small bag. It has an overabundance of big hulls that gag and choke you and get caught in your throat. I think I accidentally inhaled one all the way to my lungs in a fit of coughing and sneezing and yakking to get a big dose of them freed up! Yucky!

We are back from Orca Point Lodge. They had a gift shop and I found what I was looking for at a much better than expected price! I was looking for some kind of artwork with a face or faces on it like the Tlingit traditional art that was made by some one local. We found the same exact artist’s work in downtown Juneau for double the price and I balked and didn’t buy it. Now I have what I was looking for at a good price!

Clay did not get his salmon, contrary to the pre-cruise descriptions no salmon was served. But, he did find that he really likes king crab and he ate his fill. I had some salad and got a couple of kabobs they had grilled. Unfortunately they were not still hot, but close to room temperature and with my fear of food poisoning I couldn’t eat them. I ate some salad, a protein bar and had a glass of Riesling. Clay had an Alaskan Brewing White Ale. It was the same beer he liked at lunch today. He got a t-shirt for it today in Juneau. We were sitting at a long table alone by desserts and the bar when the Captain came along with a plateful of crab and asked to join us. He had a Diet Pepsi. It was an enjoyable evening.

They had fondue for dessert with brownies, strawberries and marshmallows unfortunately they put Grand Marnier in the melted chocolate and we both hated it. The good news is that they did have a fire going outside and had extendable forks to toast the marshmallows. They had the graham crackers and Hershey bars as well as Reese’s, Twix and KitKats! Clay expertly made himself a huge deluxe with 2 whole grahams, a whole Hershey bar and 3 marshmallows. I ate 5 toasted marshmallows alone, no s’more. That was the best part of the evening. When Jon was telling us what to expect this evening, he told us that we could order whatever we wanted from the bar and give our room number and it would be billed to our shipboard account. Clay & I were a little surprised because ADC told us that beer & wine was included at lunch and dinner. Lynette corrected him when he gave her cabin number and told people to bill it to her. Beer and wine were still included with dinner ashore. But, we are thinking that this was another difference between the Orbridge charter and the regular cruise. We have also realized as Jon talked that we are overnighting at Hobart Bay and spending a 2^nd day there were we are expected to kayak, atv and Zego play. We have never done any of those things primarily because we wouldn’t choose to and this explains what happened to our ports of Petersburg and Kake. Oh well.

Tomorrow we spend all day on the Admiralty Dream as we sail Tracy Arm up to South Sawyer Glacier. Jon says we may take some trips around the glacier or the falls in the inflatable, but we’ll have to see when we get there. That would be cool. He said that there were usually no whales in Tracy Arm. Well that’s about it, so I’ll stop for today and be back tomorrow with more to report. Southeast Alaska is beautiful and grand and spectacular. It is a special part of the world. The people are warm, friendly and welcoming. What more could you ask for?

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