Disappointment and Surprise – August 12-15, 2018

Today we docked in Juneau where we had scheduled an excursion by helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier and a half hour tour actually walking on the glacier with our guide.  We have been dragging all sorts of extra clothing along for this special part of the trip and we were really excited.  Then at 8:30 a.m. we got the call.  Due to the heavy fog and rain, the excursion was cancelled.  Bummer!  With the fog and rain, it didn’t make any sense to spend the money on any of the other excursions, so we decided to just walk around town.  Walking around town reminded me of a Caribbean seaport with nothing but jewelry shops filled with over zealous sales people standing in the doorway trying to convince you to at least come in and see what they had.  We walked around a little and then found a coffee shop that had free Wifi for it’s customers so we could catch up on emails, and then back on the ship.  A real disappointment!

Harbor at Juneau

Downtown Juneau

Unusual artwork on building in Juneau

The next day we landed in Ketchikan where we were told they normally get over 200 days of rain each year but we had mild temperatures and sunshine for the first time in many days.  When we docked at 9 a.m. it was already 65 degrees.

Picture of Port from ship

Downtown Ketchikan  as you get off the ship

  We went to the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show with champion athletes competed in events like Springboard-chopping, log rolling and the 50-foot tree climb.  One of the athletes was actually from Daytona Beach!

After lunch we walked over to the salmon ladder and saw with our own eyes how the salmon fight to get up stream to where they were born.  I’m sure the pictures don’t show the power of the water that they had to swim against but it was impressive.

Salmon swimming up this rapid

Black spots are the Salmon

Scene along the river where the Salmon were swimming and downstream from previous pictures

All in all, Ketchikan was a pleasant surprise!

After a pleasant last day at sea, we docked in Vancouver to end our Alaska adventure.  I decided that my expectations were too high for this trip and with the weather being so bad most of the time, it led to my disappointment.  With better weather, I’m sure the majestic scenery of Alaska would have wowed me like so many others.

After we got off the ship, we saw heavy dense fog again and looked forward to seeing sunshine again (you know how we Floridians need the sun to survive).  The bus driver told us it was not fog but actually smoke from all the fires.  While we were in Alaska, there were many more fires in California, Oregon, Washington and even British Columbia.  This thick haze followed us all the way to Twin Falls, Idaho where we spent 2 days.