Juneau, Alaska

Another amazing sunny day in beautiful Juneau, Alaska! We had a tour scheduled for 2:30 so that gave us time to explore downtown Juneau before the crowds hit. We found lots of souvenir shops and some old buildings.

Historically, we hadn't realized that William Seward was so instrumental in the U.S. purchasing Alaska. He presented the idea to congress and negotiated the sale. It was purchased from Russia in 1867 just after the Civil War for $7.2 million dollars. What a bargain! They didn't know then about the oil reserves or I'm sure Russia would never have parted with it.

We walked up to the old St. Nicholas Orthodox church built in 1893.


Since it was a Sunday morning they were holding "Divine Liturgy" and we didn't want to interrupt. We did step into the foyer for a quick snapshot.

We love old churches. They always remind me that our faith has been handed down by generations of believers for 2000 years. This church was small, but I'm sure it made a big mark on Juneau in the early 1900s.


We walked along the boardwalk and noticed all the seaplanes.

We were scheduled for a seaplane excursion in Ketchikan on Thursday. Yes, we had heard about the crash the week before but still thought we would go if we could. As it turned out they canceled our excursion. After hearing about the second seaplane crash in Ketchikan we were grateful for the cancellation.

Soon it was time to head back to the ship for our Whale Watching tour. I booked this privately rather than going through the ship, which saved us over $150. We booked with Alaska Galore using the 2 for 1 coupon from the Alaska Toursaver book.  I thought they did a terrific job. The water was calm and the day clear. The colorful shuttle driver picked us up and entertained us with stories of Juneau from his childhood. He noticed Brian's Texas hat and reminded us that if Alaska broke into two states Texas would be the third largest instead of the second largest state. He had lived in Spokane for a while so Brian reminisced with him about our old stomping ground.

Once on the boat we met Megan, Ian and the rest of the crew, then headed out to look for whales. Success! We found one single whale and two groups of a mamma and calf. These pictures don't really do it justice but it's the best we could do on a moving boat with mammals that don't live above water. We did see quite a few sea lions as well.  The baby whales entertained us with all kinds of breaching, flipper slapping, and lobtailing. We thought it was a delightful way to spend the afternoon.

The ship sailed at 9 p.m. By then we had already eaten dinner and were up on deck watching the sailaway. As I mentioned, dinners were very casual except for formal nights. Brian and I both wore jeans. We fit right in with the other cruisers. I think we had steak Diane, but I don't really remember since every meal was delicious. The next day would be hectic for us so we turned in early.