Juneau, AK, the 49th state's capital. And we had a shore excursion scheduled to take us to the Mendenhall Glacier. It was raining out, and I wasn't that interested in going out, as I hate going out in the rain.
But first....
RQS and I got up early, so that we could reach the meeting site by 10:30. We had breakfast in the buffet, and were out the door by 9:30.
When one gets of the ship at the pier we were docked at, one has a 10 minute walk to the center of the tourist district. And we had to do it in the drizzling rain. Both RQS and I were glad that we brought rain gear with us. Once by the tram, we had 45 minutes to kill. So we hung out across the street from our meeting place, in a relatively dry place.
Eventually, we crossed the street to find our tour guide. Although we did so, we had to wait an extra 15 minutes in the rain before the bus arrived to take us to the glacier. Our driver was a man with a beard that would qualify him to be a member of ZZ-Top. Once on the bus, the driver talked about life in Alaska, and about how he home-schooled his daughter as a single parent. (I'd have loved to find out more, but it would have been way to impolite to ask. Let's say that this 15 y/o daughter knows how to hunt, skin and tan an animal's hide, and cook the meat from that animal. Father and Daughter meet the definition of the self-reliant frontier people that people associated with Alaska.
We reached the park, took some glacier pictures, and then hung out in the visitors center until our bus returned to take us back to town. If the weather had been better, we would have walked to Nugget Falls. But that's something we'll do if we ever get back to town. Arriving in the center of Juneau, we decided to get some grub at Tracy's King Crab Shack. Yum! Although the food was expensive (this is Alaska, with its high prices), it was good. After lunch, we walked back to the ship with a couple of pit stops for souvenirs. We picked up some snacks for us to eat, a book on pre-statehood Alaskan bordellos, and some venison jerky for TCL. Once on the ship, we decided to rest for a while....
Dinner time came, and we headed downstairs for dinner. Although we requested our usual shared table, no one came to share it until we were being served our main course. This didn't stop us from having a nice conversation with the people who ate with us. And then, we were off to the main theater to hear Trenyce perform.
Trenyce is a singer who got her start on TV's American Idol show. Even though she came in 5th, she has made a career out of her singing. Tonight, she sang songs made famous by Diana Ross and Whitney Houston - and she made them her own, while performing them in the style of the original artists. This performance made up for last night's lackluster show.
All too soon, it was time to go to bed - and we did just that.
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