July 11,12 - Auke Bay, Juneau

The State Governor's mansion, even in Alaska politicians do not seem to "rough it"

A beautiful old riverboat sternwheeler we have seen in various ports in Southeast Alaska

Nance in front of the famous Red Dog Saloon from the old Juneau gold rush days

Mendenhall Glacier above Auke Bay

We left our secure cove this morning to venture further up Tracy Arm but concluded about halfway up that at the speed we were able to make while looking for icebergs that we were going to have to be satisfied with half way and we would wait to see glacier faces in Glacier Bay later in the week.
As it turned out with the excursion up Tracy Arm, we did not arrive at our Juneau destination until 3:00 and we were lucky enough to be shoehorned into the last available spot on the dock. The facilities at Auke Bay are really cool and there are some mega yachts on the outside breakwater from all over the world costing the equivalent of many countries GDP I am sure.
We intend to spend a day or two in Juneau which is about 15 minutes by taxi or bus from Auke Bay so we will have more to say about the town itself once we have had a chance to explore some more.
We did see the amazing Mendenhall Glacier on our arrival in Auke Bay. By the way it was partially sunny and warm both unusual conditions for Juneau. But the glacier is a mountain of pure greenish ice. It is remarkable so we intend to go up and see it close up by road today.

We took the bus to Juneau which was quite an experience. It took an hour and we saw every possible stop between Auke Bay and Juneau. The bus was mainly filled with locals, many native American and a strange crowd they were, although I expect they thought the same of us.

Juneau has some interesting sights but is quite a bit like Ketchikan in its unrelenting focus upon the cruise ship passenger dollar. There were some cool shops but mostly stuff I wouldn't think you could give away but they sell by the carload. We had a great meal with both Nance and I having Alaska king crab at the Twisted Fish restaurant.

We got back to the boat around 9:00 PM and will hit the sack early since we intend to head for Hoonah, a native Tlinglit community which we gather is quite with it. This town is very close to Glacier Bay and our permit for entry is the next day, July 14.

We won't likely be able to post until we get to Sitka about a week from now thanks to our friends at Telus so keep checking and we will get caught up as we can.