Ketchikan~Tracy Arm~Juneau

Tuesday~Wednesday~Wednesday

After being at sea for the past day and a half, we walked out Tuesday morning to this....

Look how beautiful. It took me by surprise when I saw it. It was 6:30 am and we were so excited to get off the ship and walk around.

Our shore excursion in Ketchikan was a walk through the Rainforest. We were with Todd and Nicole and my parents. It was probably about 45 degrees this day, but with our jackets on, there was no complaining. The scenery was beautiful, and it was not hard to just take it all in.

This is a bear print up taller than I could reach on the tree. We were told that as the bears come through here, they stretch up on the trees and "leave their mark" so the other animals know how big they are.

This was our first outing where we really started to notice the Bald Eagles. We had watched a couple of them flying while we were eating our breakfast, but near the end of our tour, this one was recovering from an attack. Aren't they just beautiful???We ended our day with some shopping and were back on the ship for dinner.

~Wednesday~

We woke up so early this morning to get to the side of the ship. We were traveling though the narrow passage of Tracy Arm. This wasn't a stop where we get off, just a place to enjoy the beautiful views in Alaska. It was freezing this morning, probably below freezing, but we were bundled up to view the glaciers, blue icebergs, black bear, bald eagles and everything else that was just green, green, green.

We arrived later that day in Juneau. It was raining when we arrived, if fact it rained the entire time we were there. But if you can believe it....IT WAS THE PERFECT WEATHER. We shopped around town for a bit until our bus was ready to leave. Jamie and Joe and my mom and dad were with us today for our canoe trip to the Mendenhall Glacier. Could you imagine it any other way??? The water was 37 degrees and we were paddling in a 12 person canoe in, out and over icebergs on a lake that had been FROZEN SOLID just 3 days earlier. It was the perfect amount of cold, and it just wouldn't have been the same experience if we would have had the sunshine. We all agreed that this was a great excursion and by far our favorite.