Juneau, Alaska

In Juneau, we did our first (and probably only, ever) ship excursion. We took a bus to Mendenhall glacier, where I would LOVE to spend more time. The glacier was breathtaking, and we also had the opportunity to watch the salmon. Apparently it is quite common to see a bear in this area, especially during this salmon time, however, we only had an hour so we didn't get to be very patient.

Next our bus took us to the Glacier Gardens Rainforest Adventure. This was really very cool - The area was beautifully landscaped, with these trees turned upside down and bunches of overflowing plants plated in the roots up top. You take a golf cart up this trail and a guide poits out the local flora as you ascend into a rain forest. At the top, you get to look out over Juneau before heading back down again. This was really very beautiful, and a totally neat experience.

After our tour we did a little shopping in Juneau (I got my blue Alaska caribiner (spell?) here.) And then decided, becasue mom was feelins so brave, to take the Mt. Roberts Tramway up top and do a short loop hike up there. That was cool, and Mom got to do something new for her, too!

Dinner tonight was yummy. After dinner in the dining room, we went to watch "Who wants to feel like a millionaire?" Where one dude basically played who wants to be a millionaire for Royal Caribbean prizes. It was ok, but the host guy kept draggin it out so much "sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, is that your ........... .............. .................. final .............. ................... ............. answer? MMMMMMMMMMMM HHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMM. You're sure? OOOOO KKKKKKK... are you sure that you don't want to think about it it some more? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo? SO your ................ sure............. that this is your .................................................................... final .............. answer?

Yeah, funny for about the first 15 minutes. Maybe. Cheapskates just didn't want a second contestent to have to give out more prizes to.

After the millionaire show, we watched a Magic show which was very good. (Grant had seen the same show on his other cruise with Steve - and its quite possible that we'll see the same show on our upcoming December cruise!)

After dinner we went to donate some money to the casino (damn those stupid quarter machines that push down quarters and dangle dollar bills like little teases - I swae the 20$ was in the same place on the first night of the cruise as it was on the last!)

Chh... yeah, it was bed time after that. Don't ask how much we spent trying to get that out!