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The 14-Day Alaskan Adventurer Cruise, August 22-September 6, 2010, Holland America Amsterdam

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Eight

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September 3 (Friday, Day 13, Juneau, Alaska) -

Morning in Juneau

Judy, Snookums and Filbert met at 8:15 in order to go on the Whale Quest and Mendenhall Glacier tour. We took a 20-minute bus ride to Auke Bay and drove by Wal-Mart and also had an excellent sneak peak of Mendenhall Glacier which was stunning. 40,000 people live in Juneau and most of them are government employees since it is the state capitol of Alaska. Juneau is accessible only by airplanes or boats. No roads lead to Juneau.

More after the jump . . . We drove by the governor’s mansion on the hillside and the capitol. We got to Auke Bay and boarded a catamaran in order to search for humpback whales. Snookums had her tights on under her pants and several layers on top and was ready to stand outside to search for whales. We saw a helicopter in the air with a huge basket underneath it. It looked like it was carrying cargo but no one could tell what.

Within a few minutes the captain found some humpbacks and most people walked up to the open-air third deck. The humpbacks were pretty much just on top of the water so we saw their humped backs but they rarely did any dives so we didn’t see any flukes. The humpbacks weren’t very active and after about 15 minutes we continued our search. The naturalist said they were feeding while near the top of the water. They have to eat for about 22 hours each day.

Whale number 2175

Whale 2175's identification book picture

We continued our cruise and saw a few more humpbacks here and there, but the captain decided to take us on a sea lion quest. We found a bunch of them, at least 100, on a small island. These were Steller sea lions and they are smaller than California sea lions. They stink the same, though! We also saw bald eagles on rocks and in trees and flying overhead. We watched the sea lions for awhile and then started heading back all the while looking for humpbacks.

Sea lions

Soon we found more humpbacks and these were VERY close to us. Even the boat’s captain had his camera out in order to get pictures. You know it’s a good excursion when the crew is taking pictures! There were four or five of them that would feed and dive and everyone got to the see the flukes many times and they were close to the boat. The weather was mostly sunny and nice.

Three whales (trust me)

Wet tail

Very close

One almost gone, the other going

Snookums bought kelp pickles from the boat’s cantina and gave them to Mom. She said that she is going to serve them at Thanksgiving. They were actually made in Sitka from the bull kelp that Sitka is known for, but since Snookums didn’t see any for sale in Sitka, she bought the pickles here. She got to taste them and they were sweet pickles and had a nice taste. They looked like pepper rings, or very large jalapeno slices/rings.

After the whale quest it was time for our 20-minute bus ride to Mendenhall Glacier. When we got there, we were given 1 hour and 10 minutes of free time. We should have only gotten 50 minutes, but we were ahead of schedule so our driver gave us an extra 20 minutes. When we got off the bus, Snookums asked the driver what three active people should do and he told us to hike to the waterfall. After following everyone to the Mendenhall Glacier viewing area, we decided to do our hike. It was drizzling now, but that didn’t stop us. We decided to bypass the visitor’s center since we wanted to see the glacier up close and personal. We started our hike and only ran into a few hearty people coming back. They all said it was worth it so we continued on the hardpacked trail. (We later realized that the trail was made out of packed glacier silt so it was almost like concrete and wasn’t muddy at all.)

When we got to the huge waterfall, Snookums and Judy had to taste the water to make sure it was fresh. It was! (Note – They did not experience any gastrointestinal issues later on, either!) None of us could believe how close we were to Mendenhall Glacier, which is a 12 miles longs and 1 ½ miles wide and is the most visited glacier in the world. We only had a few minutes to look around before hiking back to the bus. It was definitely a power hike, but well worth it. It was raining pretty hard by the time we returned to the bus, but we didn’t mind. We heard grumbling from some other passengers because of the weather, but we thought the sights were amazing and definitely would return, even in the rain. More time was needed at Mendenhall, that’s for sure.

A chunk of glacial ice

Glaciated bedrock

Glacier and waterfall

The waterfall expedition party

The tour bus returned to the ship and we got off a few blocks early in order to turn in our “free poncho” coupons at the Red Dog Saloon. After we got our free ponchos, we continued walking to the ship. Judy had to stop at one of the jewelry stores to get her free helicopter charm and was happy that she actually saw a helicopter today to make it the charm that much more memorable. We also had to stop at the Alaska Shirt Company to find out the winning cabin of the $100 in merchandise. It wasn’t us so when we got back on the ship we left a note for the cabin but never heard from them and our note was still on the door several hours later. They either got on the ship too late to go back out and claim their free stuff or else the cabin was unoccupied. Oh well.

We ate a late lunch of taco salads and then Judy and Snookums ventured out again to mail Judy’s postcards and to buy a Juneau paper. We managed to “win” $.75 in the first newspaper box we tried. We didn’t get a paper, but we came out $.75 ahead. We found another vending machine and bought a Juneau paper and a US Today. Then we went to the Glacier Silt Soap store and Snookums bought a $7 bar of decorative soap made out of smooth glacier silt. This will be used in the dragonfly bathroom at home. Snookums rarely, if ever, buys things while on trips so this must have been pretty special.

Mom, Dad and Judy ate a fast dinner in Lido since they wanted to go to both the 7 PM and 9 PM performances of Lorna Luft’s show. She is the daughter of Judy Garland and Sid Luft and the half-sister of Liza Minnelli.

Next: Baked Alaska!