Day 4, Tuesday: Juneau-Juneau is the capital city of Alaska, but is also landlocked. You have to get to it by boat or by plane/helicopter. Which is pretty crazy when you think about it.
Mike and I got up early (before 7a) to watch the boat docking between two other cruise ships that were already there (how did they get there faster?).
Other people had similar ideas.
Anywho. My dad had made a reservation with the Juneau limo company for a 15 passenger van tour, which was pretty sweet, because you didn’t spend your whole tour piling on and off a giant bus. 
First, she took us to Gold Creek, where gold was initially discovered in Alaska in the late 1800s and started a rush.
Next, we went to Mendenhall Glacier, which I had seen when we had come to Alaska last six years ago. I can’t find any pictures from that trip, but my mind says it’s smaller.
We got to touch some ice that had calved off the glacier. It was really weird how crystalline it looked.
And Mike made me touch the water to see how cold a glacier-fed river with huge chunks of ice floating in it was. (It was cold)
We hiked out to a waterfall near the glacier, which our guide told us was covered by ice 15 years ago.
We saw some more salmon on a hiking trail near the glacier
And then we stopped at a scenic overlook to see the glacier further away
(Pretty freakin’ scenic, huh?)
We also spent A LOT of time stopping the van and jumping and going WILD BERRIES OMG! And by “we”, I mean my mom. I had my retainers in and wasn’t really to pop them off and on every time she found another berry.
We then had a pit stop at the Alaskan Brewing Company, after dropping Erik and Tiffany off for their whale-watching excursion.
And drove by the Juneau Costco. Which, when you think about it, means EVERYTHING in that Costco was shipped by barge.
While we were looking at Costco, Erik was off getting some most amazing shots whale watching.
Srsly. The rest of us saw few to no whales the rest of the trip. Costco. Whales. Hmm, it was a tough decision. After we had returned to the ship, Mike and I decided to walk back into Juneau on our own for some souvenir shopping. I really wanted to find an Alaskan sourdough starter, which I failed at entirely, but we did buy some sourdough bread from an indie hippie bakery nearby. It was good. We also ate crêpes.
That evening, back on board, we had heard from our neighbor that there had been a solar storm and the northern lights were supposed to be out. Now, Alaska’s pretty far north. The sun in this picture didn’t set until well after 10:30p.
We stayed up until 11 or 11:30 before retiring. The lights (according to other people on the ship) didn’t make an appearance until about 2a. DARN! (More on this in Skagway).
Next time-Skagway (aka. Knott’s Berry Farm) and glaciers, glaciers, glaciers!
Birdie Bloggery 