We tied up in Juneau at 0700 this morning Sunrise brought another day's activities to pick and choose from. Lots of possibilities but only so many hours in a day.
Some of our fellow cruisers sign up for two or three tours a day but Ikuko and I believe in the "less is more" philosophy. We don't want to get tired out doing shore tours but today we joined the Alan Juneau tour which is included in our tour price.
First stop was the Mendenhall Glacier. I first visited here in 1962 while working on a purse seiner in these waters. The glacier has receded substantially in 56 years but it is still a remarkable sight.
The US Forest Service operates a visitors' center where they put on exhibitions and movies and answer endless questions. There are also numerous well maintained trails for the more adventurous. We walked down one of those trails to join other gawkers watching a black bear dining on salmon.
Back on the bus we headed back down the valley to the Macaulay Fish Hatchery where we saw adult salmon returning, over a million juveniles milling about in their tanks waiting for food, and all kinds of salmon products on sale.
On down the road we crossed the bridge to the other side of the channel. On this side we found the town of Douglas, the "international" airport and a lookout point where all the tourist buses stop for a photo op.
The airport qualifies a "international" only because they have one weekly nonstop flight to Vancouver, BC.
The bus tour was interesting and it gave us just enough variety to spice up the day.
After dinner I was going to walk into town to visit the Red Dog Saloon but found out it moved from its original location in the mid-nineties. I visited the original a few times when my fishing boat tied up here in the summer of '62. Since the Red Dog isn't the same, didn't seem to be much point in going out of my way to visit so edited photos instead.
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