Alaska Part 2: Juneau and Sitka

Juneau is a really beautiful place. It is nestled in between tree covered mountains, with waterfalls everywhere. It (along with most Alaskan "cities") is only reachable via plane or boat. In fact, 1 out of every 3 residents has a pilot's license just so they can get around.

We spent the day sight seeing and eating salmon in the woods. Loved this place.

We took this sweet bus out to Mendenhall glacier. Its called the blue bus. Go figure.

This is our engagement picture in front of the glacier and the waterfall.

There were these HUGE ice bergs out in the water in front of the glacier. The water was really clear and the ice was so blue. It was really beautiful.

This huge waterfall was right next to the glacier. Because, you know, the glacier alone wouldn't be cool enough.

After the glacier we headed into the woods to eat some fish. I didn't take very many decent pictures at the actual salmon bake, but there was a huge grill with tons of salmon cooking on it. A young guy was there playing music and they served the best chowder I've had in a long time.

Now a yellow bus.

After the bake we roasted marshmallows.

There was a beautiful area a few hundred yards away from the bake. There was an old mine there and some gold panning pans. There were gold flecks all over in the bottom of the river, so Nic and Lloyd spent some time trying to strike it rich. No such luck, but it was fun anyway.

(I think the two pictures below show the real connection my father-in-law and I have. I can't look at them without laughing.)

Strikin' it rich!

Perhaps Nic has found a new career.

After our tummies were full, we decided to take a spontaneous hike up one of the mountains. There was a gondola that went to the top, but it was $30/person. After talking with a couple of locals we opted to take a trail that traversed up the North side of the mountain. We were able to talk Lloyd into our insanity (he was quite willing to join actually) and so the three of us headed up the trail. It turned out to be quite a bit hotter than we expected, and we had left the ship earlier without plans to hike. But despite wearing jeans (not my preferred hiking attire) and having limited water, it turned out to be awesome. In fact, it was one of our favorite parts of the trip.

I found this randomly on the trail. Pretty cool.

Juneau from afar.

Headed to Sitka

In Sitka we decided to rent some bikes to see the area. Before that, however, we walked around town a bit just to get a feel for it. Its very small (its not the same town as you see on the movie The Proposal), but the people were really friendly and it was (as expected) beautiful.

This is the high school. The picture doesn't really show it, but it was tiny.

Yikes! We wanted to see what the cost of living would be here, and this is what we found. Five bucks for a gallon of milk. Super expensive meat. Super cheap Salmon. I could live on Salmon. (The lady at the store told us they get paid a lot more than people in the lower 48 do. She said she didn't feel like it was hard to live there and has lived there all her life.)

Heading out on our ride.

We rode up to a place called Whale park. There were these board walk trails everywhere. We went on our honeymoon to British Columbia and spent some time in a little town on the far west side of Vancouver island. There were tons of these board walk paths everywhere there and so it brought back some fun memories hiking around on them.

We didn't spot any whales here, but did I mention that we saw quite a few on our trip? Most of them we saw on our entrance into Glacier Bay. We also saw seals, dolphins, and bald eagles. The bald eagles in Alaska are as prevalent as seagulls are at the beach. Seriously they are everywhere. As much as I dislike birds, I have to admit that they are pretty majestic.

Sweet bike riding pants.

Nic loves to look for sea creatures.

And we found some.

 

Totem pole park. It was pretty cool learning about the different kinds of totem poles. The culture of the natives there is very much alive and its very interesting to hear about it from the people themselves.

Next up: Ziplining in Ketchikan and revisiting Victoria.