Jun 17, 2008 - Inside Passage To Juneau, Alaska

We had a wonderful day today. We took a tour that lasted over 12 hours and it was fantastic. We were tired when we got home but it was worth every minute. It is called the Fjord Express to Juneau. You board a 65 foot catamaran in the Skagway harbor that is especially designed for the waters of Lynn Canal. The Lynn Canal is our continent's longest and deepest glacial fjord. It is the same route all the cruise ships come in to Alaska called the inside passage. It was awesome! The boat took us first to Haines, Alaska to pick up a few more in...

Jun 16, 2008 - If it's Monday, this must be JUNEAU

We arrived in Juneau in the morning. I was scheduled for a tour to the Mendenhall Glacier. We were only in Juneau for about 6 hours so I didn't have time to do much else except walk around the shops before I had to get back to the ship. Juneau is the capital city of Alaska. You can only get there by plane or boat. There are no roads into Juneau. Sure seemed different to see all the mountains with snow and have it be so warm there. The entire inside passage is a temperate rain forest. That means that they get greater than 100 inches of...

Jun 14, 2008 - Juneau, AK

Saturday, June 14th, Sitka to Juneau on MV Fairweather Up & out rather late to walk down to the Totem Pole National Forest Historical Park, and the site of the last big battle between the Tlingits and the Russians in 1804. Beautiful rainforest walk in the ;mist. Since the MV Fairweather has no hot cafeteria, I (Chuck) hoofed the several blocks back downtown to buy wrap sandwiches, and made another “just-in-time” arrival for the shuttle bus pickup for the ferry dock. We did a quick visit with Rick & Ronnie as they disembarked – to pass on...

Jun 14, 2008 - Sitka to Juneau

June 14, 2008 We left Sitka on the 1:30 P.M. fast ferry to Juneau. It is a catamaran like the Cat and traveled at an average of 40 miles per hour once it was in open water. Leaving Sitka we traveled through some narrow areas, but once we reached Chatham Strait we moved right along. We saw several whales, a brown bear and seals on our journey. We arrived in Juneau at 6 P.M. and were able to get a site with electric in Mendenhall Lake Campground, A National Forest Campground, located right beneath Mendenhall Glacier. With our Golden Age pass...

Jun 12, 2008 - Juneau

At 8AM we checked in with Karl’s Auto & Marine to see what the problem was with the coach. There were a lot of loose bolts, fan damage from the loose bolts, belt damage, etc. So we had to have the job that was done in Whitehorse ALL redone. We drove out to Mendenhall glacier which is 12 miles from the icefield to Mendenhall Lake. At the widest point of the glacier it is more than 1.5 miles with ice 100 to 1800 feet deep. It is quite a site to behold. Nugget Falls is to the right of the glacier and we spotted a goat with 2 kids just above...

Jun 12, 2008 - Sitka and Juneau

Yesterday we just took it kind of easy and spent some more time downtown Sitka. Today we were on the fast ferry to Juneau. This ferry traveled twice as fast as the others we have been on. We have met some very nice people. On this part of the trip many of the people are following a similiar itineray and schedule so you see and talk to the same people which is kind of nice. The last couple of days have been mostly dry. These are considered very nice days in this part of the state. With all the time we have spent on the water and in the rain...

Jun 12, 2008 - Juneau

I woke after an undisturbed night to discover Christine had been fighting her dinner all night and had been up with the light on getting Rolaids, etc. She was fine when she got up, but had not slept well at all. We were docked in Juneau, where we had been four years ago, but one berth over. I again went to the CEIF devotions and came back to the room and we went to the dining room for breakfast. We were not impressed with the service and the buffet would have been at least as quick. As it was damp in Juneau we got our waterproof jackets and...

Jun 11, 2008 - Lynn Canal Boat Ride and Mendenhall Glacier

On Wednesday, we took a day trip by fast catamaran down the Lynn Canal from Skagway to Juneau. The promo materials for this excursion mentioned that they would try to show us some wildlife on the way to and from Juneau. We figured that we'd probably only see some porpoises and bald eagles in the distance which the boat crew would point out as we zipped along past. WRONG!!!!! Instead, the boat crew went out of their way to look for wildlife and had no hesitation about swinging the boat around to take us closer and then stopping the boat so...