Had to stop and take a photo of the Bucc-ee’s sticker all the way in Alaska! (Bucc-ee’s is a chain gas station/store in Texas that draws crowds of people when you stop at one. And super clean restrooms.) Because we’d arrived in Juneau mid-morning we had until later in the evening before our ship left port and approximately four or five hours before we had to return to the ship to get on our tour bus for the whale watching tour. Our ship was docked at the furthest dock from town and thankfully the city/cruise ships have a deal to provide shuttles to the east side of town for tourists.…

On our way to a whale watching tour in Juneau, we stopped for about 10 minutes at the Brotherhood Bridge near the Mendenhall River to get our first glimpse of the Mendenhall Glacier. The Mendenhall River is a relatively short river, draining Mendenhall Lake at the base of the glacier, flowing into Fritz Cove downstream. The view from the scenic overlook area was gorgeous as you can see, with swaths of fading fireweed in the foreground. In the distance we saw paddlers in the river. A trail was nearby but we had no time for sleuthing down the trail so we had to be content with our views from here.…

I think this is what is labeled on a topo as Suicide Falls coming out of Cross Bay Creek on the SE side of town. Our arrival into Juneau wasn’t until mid-morning so we had plenty of time to get up, eat breakfast, and then bounce from outside deck to outside deck to take in the views as we slowly sailed into Juneau. With Admiralty Island and Douglas Island to our port side and the mainland to our starboard side, we had plenty of interesting things to see on each. The island side was less populated, less homes built and much more remote appearing. Once we crossed over to Douglas…

Our brief foray into the Totem Heritage Center was enjoyable. Forest was so enthralled by some of the totems outside as we took photos with them that ran up the ramp and really wanted to go in. Chris and I both had a feeling this would not be the place for a rambunctious 5-year old. He loves going to the Houston Museum of Natural Science and even then we are bouncing from exhibit to exhibit, not really able to focus on reading any of the exhibit signs or really getting to absorb it. But he was adamant about going in and since he was free and we only had to…

After our hike at Carlanna Lake, we called a taxi and told the driver that we wanted to see the salmon run and ladder in town. She drove us to Deermount Street at the north end of a city park and sure enough, there were plenty of salmon in Ketchikan Creek. We got out and paid her and then watched the fish for a while. Forest wanted to play in the park nearby so we walked over and scouted that out while Chris finished oogling at the salmon. At the far end of the park is the Deer Mountain Hatchery which was open to the public to view and learn…