Today is the official middle of our cruise -- happy because that means we have half to go still but sad because that means it's half over.
Our breakfast routine has become solidified...Ian orders coffee and cereal and pastries delivered to the room and the twins and I head up to the buffet...because we've become obsessed with the chicken congee there. They add green onions; I also add seaweed and crumbled eggs. They say it tastes like 皮蛋瘦肉粥 and therefore devour huge bowls of it every morning.
The main attraction in Juneau seemed to be the Mendenhall Glacier. We could have done the shuttle or tried to catch a cab, but many people recommended renting a car to explore Juneau with more flexibility. Given that Juneau doesn't even have roads connecting it to any other town, the number of rental cars is limited...leading to a healthy supply of Turo cars. This was our first experience renting with Turo and I have to say it was pretty seamless!
To get to the parking garage where we picked up the car though, we had to walk past about 30 jewelry stores and some sort of fish packing/hatching facility. The smell was...very powerful.
Once we got ourselves in the car and out of town, it was about a 20 minute drive to Mendenhall. Drumroll please!
The twins insisted on an "eating the glacier" shot. I applauded the creativity.
To give you a sense of perspective, this entire lake used to be all glacier a mere fifty or so years ago. Shocking....and pretty depressing.
I tried to force the twins to do the Trail of Time hike with me...they countered by promising to cooperate on photo taking if we only did the shorter Nugget Falls and photo point hikes instead. So here's them standing in awe of where the glacial field used to reach back in 1938.
Family shot with the glacier:
Here's L's masterpiece on the beach.
They told me that there are three rules for hiking: 1) there must be a destination. 2) it must not be more than 4 miles. 3) it must all be flat or end with downhill. The Nugget Falls trail, being only 2 miles and ending in a waterfall, was satisfactory. Here's the destination!
I also took them on the photo point walk -- because the destination for this 0.5 mile hike was definitely worth it:
After all that hiking, we thought we'd try to catch some famous Alaskan crab. Unfortunately...the four other cruise ships docked at Juneau today were filled with folks who all had the same idea it seemed. So...back to the ship buffet for lunch it was.
When we came back out for our afternoon adventure, we decided to check out the jewelry stores, which all seemed to offer free pendants or gifts for stopping in...so I tried out a TON of rings and the twins picked up a dozen or so free souvenirs. I ended up realizing how good of a deal I got on the Sri Lankans sapphire ring (that I lost, sob). We later heard that all of the diamond stores were actually owned by the cruise ships. Made sense, as I didn't think Alaska was exactly known for the mining of diamonds...
Random shot with the bear seats outside one of the dozen jewelry stores we stopped in:
Our afternoon destination was the National Shrine of St. Therese, the patron saint of Alaska, who advocated for everyone doing little acts of goodness. The grounds were supposed to be quite beautiful (and often were a good vantage point for whale spotting too).
No whales today, but it was an enjoyable little destination. Great time for gardens in Alaska right now. Here's the labyrinth, which had a very impressive array of flowers all around.
Parting shot of Juneau pier:
The pier actually had a pretty impressive outline map of the United States with little nails. We weren't 100% sure what we were looking at until we saw Michigan.
Today was the last port day in Alaska, but tomorrow will be the highlight of the entire cruise: Glacier Bay!
We did not teach them those hiking rules! 6 miles minimum, must include elevation to get views, and OK on the downhill at end.
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