Auke Lake Bed & Breakfast Juneau

... very interesting and the conditions that they compete in are unbelievable. Since winning the Iditarod she has competed in several other countries. She is from Minnesota and when she was like 18, moved to Alaska. She has 40 dogs and 1 cat. The dogs are all trained to be sled dogs. Someone asked how she stayed in shape and she said training the dogs is a 365 day a year job so that's how she stays in ...

... to Anchorage and walked to my hostel - I chose the hostel because it was close to the train station. I had the next day off just wandering around town, got a haircut, and wondered how a town could have so many odd people, seriously, there are some strange people in Anchorage. That evening a few of us from the hostel wandered down to the coast to see the sunset - very nice.

The next day I walked back to the station to get the train to Seward - I ...

... sweatshirt in my backpack, so we hiked up the hill, on the west side of town, to visit the governor’s mansion. There was a woman in her late thirties, posing for her husband’s camera. She was a Palin look alike, which made me wonder if she knew what type of currency they have in Australia. Anyway, I walked up to the mansion and she said, “I’m not giving autographs (laugh, laugh).” I just smile and told her I wouldn ...

... was great), historicall tours, museums, shopping .... For some reason my Mom (82) did not want to go Zip Lining or the 5 hour hike which where my first choices.

We did pick up a tour ($27 pp) for a 2 hour tour of the town and Mendenhall Glacier. This was a hilarious tour -not meant to be but everything that could go wrong did and the driver was just an odd sort. The bus was late as the first bus had broken down. So we got ...

... br>Thursday - we arrived in Juneau where we disembarked from the boat. This was very sad as we had really enjoyed the boat and also made lots of new friends.

In Juneau, Anne did a seaplane ride over the glaciers and I did a helicopter ride out to a large glacier where we landed and I went on a dog-sled ride. I even got the chance to steer the dog-sled.

Tomorrow we are off to Vancouver, then SanFrancisco and then home.

... back about 2 hours into the journey to put off two people who were sick, it didn't alter the schedule as we made up time during the night. The Ryndam named after the Rhine River is a Holland America Line ship carrying 1226 people and about 550 crew. As we sailed out and under the Lion Gate bridge we enjoyed a drink up on the outside deck. We had ...

... game of Monopoly- which Brian successfully crushed me at with his two hotels on Indiana Ave. We had Chicken and Rice for dinner and Raspberry Crumble for dessert. Now it's time for bed and we are dreeding the cold. We get a great idea- I took the water from my water bottle and boiled it on the cook stove. Poured the water back into the bottle and now I had my own little Hot Water Bottle to put at the bottom of my sleeping bag- I gave Brian a hat ...

... our bus and went to Mendenhall Glacier where we picked up another cache and then hiked about 1 mile and took our pictures. We were then taken back to the boat for the return trip. On the return trip back to Skagway, we saw 6 humbacks, one breeched (jumped completely out of the water) lots of tail flukes getting stuck up in the air. We also stopped at the Eldridge Light lighthouse and saw several pods of Dall's porpoise along with seals ...

... atmosphere and the greatest was that I actually found gold! This area's history reaches way back in the gold rush when settlers came and looked for gold. That's where the city has its name from, Joe Juneau who discovered gold together with Richard Harris. There is no business anymore and the mines are also not active, but there is still gold around, of course not like in the past. It's actually a rock that has tiny pieces of gold on it. It ...

... and he constantly calls me Madelaine. I let him do it and don't correct him as I think it's funny. So our day off is on Tuesday and we can't wait to finally go on a hike in the mountains. It's foggy and very cloudy but it's supposed to be better. Temperatures will go to about 65 Fahrenheit (now have fun converting it 'cause I can't and am too lazy to look it up). We haven't done much around here. Twice we went to a store a bit outside downtown called Fred Meyers. On the way ...