Here we are approaching Juneau. The weather was nasty. It was cold and rainy and foggy. This is the one port where I wanted to participate in a shore excursion offered by the ship. Shore Excursions in Alaska ain't cheap and some of them are downright scary. I found one that wasn't too expensive nor too scary. It was rafting down the river flowing from the Mendenhall Glacier. I was actually excited about it. Normally I'm not into rafting or other outdoor sports. But I decided to step out of my comfort zone and do this. As we pulled into Juneau, I was having second thoughts. The weather was awful. What was I thinking going out there and spending 3 hours in a raft on a river. The weather was so bad they canceled all the flight seeing excursions. It was too dangerous for planes or helicopters to go up.So here we were standing in the rain, waiting for the bus to take us up to the Glacier. Needless to say, Mr. D was not a happy camper. He kept looking at me like I was forcing him to drink castor oil. But he was a good sport and off we went. We finally came to a parking lot in the nature preserve at the Glacier. A young guy from the tour company operating the shore excursion jumped on the bus and proceeded to read us a waiver that we were all to sign as we got off the bus. He was hilarious. The waiver a little iffy. You might get wet, the raft might capsize, it's not their fault, yada yada. We all signed and out we went. LOL
We lined behind a truck where we were handing rain gear: pants with suspenders and hooded rain slickers and the loveliest pair of rubber boots you ever wanted to see. If I hadn't had to put away my camera so it wouldn't get wet, it would have made a heckuva picture. So very pretty. As if that weren't enough, we then had to don life jackets. I felt like the illegitimate daughter of the Michelin Man and the Pillsbury Doughgirl (yes, the doughboy has a woman). I could barely move and these people wanted me to wade into 35 degree water - yes 35 degrees! and climb into a rubber raft. I wish there were pictures, you'd laugh until you wet your pants.
We get packed into the raft - onto a wooden bench that is only a 2x4 plank - 4 people across. It was cozy. Too bad the couple on the seat with us were kinda poopy. It sure would've been more fun trying to move around. Oh well. By the way, our guide and raft pilot was a college student with red stripped hair. Shawna was awesome! She was so much fun and really knew her stuff.
We got in and down the river we went. Shawna pulled us right up to an little iceberg. It was a piece of the Glacier that had broken (calved) off. It was blue and white a beautiful. As we floated down the river we saw eagles and a black bear, actually D saw the bear I couldn't move to turn around to see it. Plus we saw various dams that beavers had constructed. Very cool.
After a while we couldn't feel our hands cause the water was so cold and the north wind was blowing. That just made us laugh harder. We went down some rapids. It was great. As you can tell I survived to tell the tale.
We didn't see much of Juneau. Thought about getting off the bus on the way back from the ship but it was pouring down rain and the prospect of a drink and a hot shower on the ship made the decision for us. Tomorrow Skagway!
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