Alaska Cruise Part 3

Sunday August 13th was our third day out.  Sunday morning they announced that there was going to be a non-demonational church service at 9am.  Lynnette and I decided to go and it was such a blessing.  To sit in the beautiful room, with over 100 of our fellow travelers from all over the world, watching the beautiful scenery float by and having church.  It lasted about an hour and then we ventured down to the Windjammer Cafe for their buffet breakfast.  The plates there were BIG oval melamac type plates and they held alot of food.  And believe me there was alot of food to choose from.  It was unbelievable. Why you could eat yourself into a stupor first thing every morning.  The one thing I enjoyed was good decaf coffee.  Usually in a resturant it has a burnt taste to it.  But they used "Seattle's Best" brand in the dinning room, the Windjammer and at the latte stand.  And I think they brewed it often enough that even the decaf pot was always fresh.

We arrived in Juneau at 11am so had plenty of time for church, a leisurely breakfast and time to prepare for getting off the ship for our first time. The cruise line offered each guest a complimentary bus trip out to the Mendenhall Glacier and Lynnette and I signed up for the 11:30am trip, so we'd have time in town later in the day.  It was about a 6 mile drive from the ship out to the glacier and we caught our first glimpse of life in a fairly remote Alaskan town. Even though  these towns are remote, they are very modern. Looks like any town anywhere, people with cell phones, SUV's, latte stands, the whole works. It was either in Juneau or Skagway (can't remember) that I saw pink plastic flamingo's in someone's yard.  Quite a sight !  Anyway we went out to the Mendenhall Glacier and it was stunning.  It was a light blue color that glistened.  It's quite an awesome sight. We watched a short video about the history of the glacier and then had to leave.  Only got an hour there. Not long enough.  When we got back into town, we got off at the first stop, by the library.  We were told they had free internet service so I thought I'd be able to email without having to pay 42 cents a minute.  Fat chance...there was like 10 people lined up waiting to use the 5 computers they had.  Anyway the library is very nice.  Bigger even the one near my house.  Of course it's also the only one they have in the whole town.   From there we crossed the street and visited the famous Red Dog Saloon.  We had planned on having lunch there but it was packed, so we squeezed in and took a few pictures and got out.  They have a nice gift shop around the corner so got postcards, etc there.  I did get a CD of the guy that was playing the rag-time piano while we were taking our pictures.   From there we just hit the gift shops, etc until our legs felt like they were falling off and then we took the shuttle back to the ship. I think we were hungry for a fat-free yogurt cone.    That's the story of our first day off our floating hotel.   

Until next time.............Linda