Driftwood Lodge Juneau

... breath taking. <br><br>Midday, we went into town to find a new pair of hiking boots for Serguis. (My old boots that he was supposed to be wearing fell apart at breakfast this morning.) Right in the center of town, we came across the Red Dog Saloon - famous for it's loud piano music, sawdust floors and where the Centanni honeymoon originally came to an end! This was the infamous place that I left John's binoculars 20 years ...

... in Steep Creek. Because of the bear activity, only a small part of the boardwalk trail was open. The two times we were here during the day, we didn&#8217;t see any bears. One evening we went around 8:00 p.m. Saw four different black bears&#8212;young one eating salmon right below the boardwalk; another walked along the creek a little further upstream&#8212;saw it get ...

... also saw a few glaciers in the distance as we navigated our way back. Once in the harbour, we got back in the van for a quick stop at Mendenhall Glacier to capture a few photos. The glacier is about 12 miles long but has receded 1.75 miles since 1958 and this trend is likely to continue if temparatures continue to rise.<br><br>After the glacier we were starving when we returned to Juneau so a quick stop at Tracy's Crab Shack ...

... park boat to see the glaciers is great on the way up. You can see a lot of wild life (we saw17 bears in 2007) and the glaciers are magnificent. Coming back gets to be a long day with the kids as they've Bern cooped up for eight hours, seen everything, and finished their junior ranger books. Still worth doing once. Suppose I better start planning 2009.

... cookie jar! We then boarded the ferry to Juneau. Sadly, despite the fact that the whales had been very active over the last few days, we didn't see any on the journey ...

... at Fred Meyer and , yes a super Walmart. Brian was a little starstruck by the Fred Meyer pharmacy drive thru, which had two carved tiki's in front of it. Picture to come. Gas isn't as expensive as we thought it would be, but still more than at home. $4.64 for regular and $5.10 diesel. So we got back to Amy's made a frozen pizza and we are both pretty tuckered out. Hiking to come in the next couple of days followed by pictures! Take Care Hill and B-ri

... over. No more looking for candy, lets get out of here... The last few days have been extremely rainy and windy. It rained almost 24 h for the last 3 or 4 days so that we didn't really leave the hotel. We spent almost a whole day at the airport as the most stupid airline KLM screwed up my flight change. Unfortunately we couldn't get it straight and had to by a new ticket. The bus ride made me see again that I do feel pity for the people ...

... funds from us! We bid on and won one of the cakes at auction and everyone shared everyones' cakes. Next on the agenda was a tour to the local major glacier - The Mendenhall - and out onto the water to see the humpies feeding. Sometimes I had to get down and dirty to get a potential photo ...

... could be merely a thin cap over a yawning crevace.<br><br>All in all, the hills, jagged spires, and deep scarred crevaces made it as though we had settled on the surface of some barren, frozen blue/gray planet.<br><br>Our pilot showed us around the glacier. We walked on blue ice and drank some melted glacier water from a glacial stream. According to local legend, drinking glacier water will cause you to live forever. Our pilot even confessed ...