Juneau - capital of Alaska

We docked in Juneau around lunch time, in light rain.  The locals said that this was normal summer weather and they do not see much sun in Juneau.  Like Sitka, it sits in the Tsongass rain forest – the largest National forest in the US (it is slightly larger than West Virginia….).  So they don’t let drizzle get in their way, and our tour went on as planned – The rain actually stopped almost right away, and although the day remained grey, it was quite pleasant.  We first drove to the small craft harbor, for another wild life tour.  Along the road, there were eagles on almost every light post.  I think that the locals feel the same way about tourists taking pictures of eagle as we do about tourists taking pictures of squirrels in Central Park.  It’s just silly – they are everywhere.  But they don’t say that – they patiently point them out to us because we so like them.   I suspect they feel the same about whales tails too…..  you can see the whales dive from the road, so they are probably quite blasé about it.  

 But we are not….  We saw a couple of mommy/calf pairs swimming around – but that’s impossible to show on picture, because most of the time, you see them blow next to each other and by the time you point your camera, they are gone.  One of the calf nicely put on a show for us, noisily flapping his tail on the water over and over – again, hard to show on picture – but here is a try….  

Along the way, Joe to some artsy pictures  of the surrounding mountains, 

of the glaciers that snake they way down to the ocean , 

and of the fishing boats that we floating around, looking at whales too .

Juneau – although on the main land (unlike Sitka, which is on an island)- is completely landlocked:  The large ice fields that feed the numerous glaciers that surround it would make it very difficult to build a road  It is the only state capital (other than Honolulu, which is on an island), which cannot be reached by road.  There are only 3 ways to get to Juneau:  Boat, plane, and birth canal…. There is one road along the coast – it is 40 miles long, and then stops.  People travel by ferry- which is very reminiscent of what we say all over Norway – not surprising since the geography is almost identical.

Continuing our boat ride, we passed a large colony of sea lions. 

 It is too bad that pictures do not capture the noise they make, as they are very raucous!

After that, we went to the Mendenhall glacier national park – were one can walk very close to the glacier ,

and next to a large waterfall next to it.  The visitor center was built 30 years ago, and you could almost touch the glacier from it.  Now, because all glaciers are receding (pay attention climate change deniers!), it is about 1 one mile walk to get close to it.   

The trail goes through the beautiful rain forest, full of flowers,

 

 and interesting looking moss.

 It smell wonderful – I already noticed that in Sitka, but I have not been able to identify which flower is responsible for the smell.

Here are a few more picture of the glacier-

I really like this one, where it is almost impossible to figure out which way is up, as the glacier is reflected in its own lake.

 Before going back on ship for the late evening sail from Juneau to Swagway, I took a quick stroll around town.  It is pretty, but really small.  You can see all of it in about 20 minutes.  It is famous for having the ugliest state building in the US – but is was under construction (maybe they are trying to improve that ranking).