Archive for 'Travel'
Wow, what a vacation. Sandy and I travelled to Juneau, Alaska to visit with our friends, Blair and Jim. They have a condo directly across the channel from downtown Juneau, on Douglas Island, with a great view of the town and the mountains surrounding it. We were scheduled to stay for 8 days and ended up staying 10. Blair and Jim were excellent hosts and very knowledgeable about the town, the history of the area, the people and things to see and do. Made me realize how little I know about my own hometown.
Everyday we were busy. Blair had worked for a travel agency in the past so she signed us up with some tours which was a great benefit for us. Both Jim and Blair are very much into hiking and being outdoors so they pointed us to hiking trails and joined us when they weren’t working.
On the first day Sandy and I took a helicopter ride up on top of Mendenhall Glacier where we got to walk around with a guide for a half hour. On another day, we went on a boat ride down the Tracey Arm Fjord to see two other glaciers and on the way back from there we saw humpback whales jumping completely out of the water. We went on a zip-line through the rainforest that took us 160 feet above ground at its highest point and included 2 suspension bridges that were in some ways scarier than the zip-line itself. On one of our last days in Juneau we took a tram up a mountain and hiked up even further where we saw mountain goats and a lone white wolf, although not together. Some of the trails we hiked included Boy Scout beach, Glacier trail, Persistence trail and Rainforest trail and we saw waterfalls almost everywhere.
Almost every night, Blair and Jim would cook a really great meal at their condo. I ate more fish in that 10 days than I normally eat in 3 months, but it was great food. Oh, and we had fresh King Salmon and fresh King Crab. Wow, were they tasty. The King Crab was by far the best crab I’ve ever eaten. We also had rockfish, prawns and moose meat.
Eagles were abundant, as were ravens and crows. We loved hearing the screeching of the eagles as well as the wings of the ravens as they flew near. The ravens produce a loud whoosh, whoosh sound when they flap their wings.
Overall, it was one of the best trips we’ve ever been on and we’ll remember it for very long time. When I look at the pictures I sometimes wish I could be back there still.