It all began with this woman:
Well, it didn't all begin with her. But this trip, and all the memories created, are because of her. "Her" is my mother-in-law, Rosemary, who looks cute, but is not. She's distinguished. She's gracious and kind and doesn't like being called cute. (Secretly, and very warmly, I still think she's cute. But don't tell her I said that.)
Seven years ago Rosie brought her oldest daughter's family on a trip with The Boat Company and for seven years we had to endure the photos and stories about this wonderful trip. I truly thought it sounded nice, but come on... I saw the pictures. It was rainy and gray and they were dressed for winter. In the summer.
I love to travel. Even more, I love the thought of travel. When Rosie came to visit us in the spring and said she'd like to take our family and her daughter's family to Alaska I was a bit giddy at the prospects. We didn't initially plan on a Boat Company trip because it's not cheap, but anything we looked at didn't compare in Rosemary's eyes. It always came back to The Boat Company. I looked at charters: "Well, it's just not quite like The Boat Company." I read on-line reviews: "Doesn't sound like the same experience as The Boat Company." The Boat Company. The Boat Company. So I called Kathy. At The Boat Company.
Don't ever call Kathy at the Boat Company unless you are prepared to sign up for this trip. Because there is no fence sitting once Kathy gets ahold of you. She's enthusiastic and friendly and once crewed the boat herself. I got off the phone with her once and Anna, who had overheard the conversation said, "Did you make a new friend?" As if it were the first day of preschool and she was proud of me.
This was one of our first glimpses of the boat, the Mist Cove, sandwiched between two enormously large cruise ships. I know there's a large contingency of people who love their cruise ships, but I'm not one of them. I was so glad not to be on one of those ships. We had an ongoing discussion amongst ourselves whether it's better to go on a large, less expensive cruise on one of these ships or to not go on a trip at all.
I don't think there was a consensus one way or another, but my 15-year-old niece, Ginny, who is not a nature girl (I still have hope for her, however, because that girl was game for anything!), thought the twisty slide on top of the Carnival Spirit looked like a lot of fun.
We flew into Juneau and spent two nights here:
The Westmark Baranof. It doesn't look nearly this fancy in person. If you were to stay here, hypothetically speaking, of course, I would highly recommend requesting a room on the backside of the building unless you want to hear all the street noise and someone yelling for Jimmy at 3 in the morning which is highly disconcerting when your son is named Jimmie and you wonder why people are yelling for him. And then I would highly, HIGHLY recommend that you do NOT get a room next to Eric and Lisa for two nights because they are she is quite loud and even louder after you complain to the front desk and they call to ask them to be quieter. Let's just say I was really glad Anna slept through it all and that my ears needed a solid bleaching after that night.
Juneau is an interesting mix of outdoorsy tourist town and cruise line destination. I liked the outdoorsy part of it and there were some great little shops hidden amongst the traps, but I learned that many of the shops closer to where the cruise ships dock are actually owned by the cruise ship companies. Which would explain all the sales on Tanzanite and Tourmaline and Gold that look exactly like the sales of jewelry that you see in the Caymans, for example.
We rented a wreck in Juneau for 24 hours at $135 for a van that fit all 9 of us very comfortably. It didn't come with a driver, but we had our own who constantly referred to himself in the third person so he didn't receive a tip.
There's nowhere far to go around Juneau since it's landlocked, but we wanted to see Mendenhall Glacier, our first for the trip:
At the time we thought the ice floes were amazing. Then we saw this:
Not knowing that in a couple days we would be doing this:
and watching this:
You poor people. Are you still here? Because this is just the beginning.
