Ted and I started our last full day in Juneau by taking a walk through downtown, over to Douglas Island, and back. We saw some totem poles, a huge statue of a humpback whale (photo credit to Ted), and the State Capital Building, which is probably the smallest in the US. After that, we came home and had a light lunch, and then Maya, Kathy, and I went whale watching! I’ve never been whale watching before, though we did go dolphin watching in Maui a few years ago, which was great. We have whale watching off the coast of California, but that’s in the open ocean, while in Juneau you…

Tuesday, we all drove back out to the Mendenhall Glacier, which is where we had gone to see the stars a couple of nights prior. In daylight, it was sort of crowded with tourists, though not too bad. There is a waterfall at one side of the glacier, which we had seen and heard the other night. There is a beaver dam, though it is covered by branches and you couldn’t really see it well. Maya and I had gone to the glacier on our prior trip to Juneau, in 1999 (when she was 3, so she doesn’t remember), and I could see that the glacier has receded some since…

Juneau is so beautiful, I can easily see how my mom, Richard, and Kathy just fell in love with it. The flight from Anchorage to Juneau is pretty quick, and the price difference between coach and first class wasn’t that much, so we splurged. FUN! The picture above is one of many from that flight. The mountains just go on forever. As you can see, we finally got some sunny weather. Don’t get me wrong, I like misty, drizzly weather, but thus far it had really gotten in the way of some of the things I wanted to see, like the stars at night without light pollution, the Aurora Borealis,…

We lived in Alaska for 5 years when I was young, before moving back to California when the overcrowding from the pipeline construction forced us out of Fairbanks. My mom moved back to Alaska, to Juneau, in 1993, and my brother and his wife followed in 1994. My brother and his wife (Richard and Kathy) had never been to Juneau, so it was a huge leap for them to move there sight unseen, but they fell in love with its spectacular beauty, with the cool weather, so different than Stockton and Sacramento, and the slower pace of life in a much smaller town. As did my mom. I have been…

We flew home from Alaska last night, we had a wonderful time. 11 days, and we went to Fairbanks, Anchorage, Homer, and Juneau. I have a lot to say and am still figuring out how I want to write about it here. I think I will end up making a lot of smaller posts, to avoid overwhelming with a ton of pictures and so on. For now, here is a picture I liked, from Homer. Loved this little otter just hanging out near the boats.