Cruise Ships here today: Explorer OTS, Queen Elizabeth, Coral Princess, Celebrity Summit. In our past visits, there have not been this many ships at once and big ones at that.
Typical Juneau weather – a rainy start then nice.
We are on tour today “Brews and Views” – most of the tours here are
“Adventure tours” requiring higher activity (hiking, kayaking) than we are
looking for. It’s an afternoon tour so the
morning is pretty standard.
It was so foggy this morning that I was only able to get this photo at breakfast.
The Galley Breakfast, once again, was excellent. I’ve got the timing down so the blueberry pancakes and the EOM come at the same
time. There is another option. At the station next to the pancake station,
they have wonderful scrambled eggs – add a little cheddar cheese and you have a
great breakfast dish (that goes with pancakes). Don't forget to ask for salt.
After breakfast, I went to the Turnabout and got one of those cubbies.
A good place to stretch out and read a book
or catch up on emails (not too many of those). In the morning, that area is DJ
free and relatively quiet.
I picked up Ellen around 9 AM and she had French Toast and EOM while I had some more delicious coffee.
Even though it was drizzling a bit, we went up to Deck 16 to get a good look at the surrounding area as well as the armada of Cruise Ships parked here today.
I also got a wonderful panoramic shot which
got all the ships. The Pixel 10 Camera
has a great PANO mode and stitches the various individual pictures together
seamlessly.
I got a picture of the Celebrity Summit by itself.
Lunch today
was in one of the non-Galley eateries, The Pizza Place located on Deck 6
midships (around the corner from the elevators). Ellen ordered the Truffle Oil
pizza – no sauce white pizza - and I ordered the classic pizza. Soft drinks are
brought by the wait staff. They also had salads in the to go containers but we
didn’t get one today. Their pizza is one of the best bites after The Galley
breakfast.
After lunch, we went to the pier to meet our group (around 3 PM). While we were waiting for our guide to show, I got a nice picture of the mountain, which is home to the Juneau Ice Field,
which makes the glacier
flow here. Ellen and a very nice totem
pole made for a great shot. One of the coolest totems we’ve seen.
As the wait continued, I went into what I think was a lottery ticket store and used their facilities (I did not know how long the first stop might be). Good idea since it was a while before our driver appeared. I forgot his name but he was quite amusing – he’s a musician as well (he played some of his music on the tour). We boarded the bus – I was able to get the jump seat (we all kept our initial seats) which made boarding easier. The van also had steps which made getting off a lot easier. We had a little tour of downtown Juneau (I did not remember anything about the town and we were just here last year). We parked on a hill overlooking an outdoor eatery or market of some kind
and then walked down (Ellen and the tour guide followed by me) the hill made a left and then a right to wind up at our first bar, The Devil’s Club Brewery.
This
brewpub was founded by and is run by folks born and raised in Juneau.
We sat down in long tables and each of us had a set of three samples to try, Signature IPA, Dock Jump Hazy Pale, and Mumbo Jumbo Spruce Saison.
Lots of fancy names for someone who prefers Stella (on the fancier ships I do try a lot of exotic beers and ales). Bottom line, Ellen didn’t like any of them
and I tried them but they were so different from other beers that I didn’t like them either. The IPA was the most confusing since it had no carbonation – left out too long?
Anyhow, the waitress brought me another and
it was better but still didn’t match the IPAs I’ve had in the past. In an odd
move, one fellow drinker ask if he could finish Ellen’s flight and he did. He might have finished his wife’s as
well. The four oz samples run about
$4.00 so our buddy did OK.
We walked back to the van, which headed out of town. The driver was driving pretty fast but he looked like he knew what he was doing and I don’t think he drank anything. We headed NW on the Glacier Highway just South of the Mendenhall Glacier and the van stopped there for a photo op of the famed glacier.
We all gathered on a bridge where the guide took pictures of each of with the glacier in the background.
I also got a nice picture of Fireweed,
a plant with the nickname
of “First Responder” since it is one of the first plants to repopulate an area
ravaged by a fire.
We got back in
the bus and drove alongside a briny marshland – Ocean Water on the left and fresh
water on the right. Juneau International
Airport was on our left side.
We got to the
brewery in just a few minutes – only about 12 miles from Juneau. We parked in the first spot in the lot right
next to the door. The Forbidden Peak Brewing Company is just the
opposite of the first place – a large open space with an outdoor eating area
with individual fire pits.
We all sat around the same kind of long table and got our lineup of beers. In this group we had Cran Razz, Nuke Bay, Red Spruce, and Aukness.
I tried them all –
they were better than the Devil’s Club but still not something I could
finish. The Red Spruce was made from the
sweet tips of a spruce tree, we were told.
Again, we drank very little of the offerings – I drank more of these
than the former group. Another memorable moment at this venue was the bathrooms
where urinals were made from cutout aluminum beer kegs. That same drinking buddy finished both his
wife’s and Ellen’s tray. He was getting
his money’s worth. I went outside to try
and get some scenery but there were too many things in the way. It was very scenic.
Our final stop on the way back was the Alaskan Brewing Company. This place was pretty much no frills and was in a strip mall. I didn’t know what it was until we got there and went inside, which had some neat graphics.
Our samples here included: Amber, White, and Smoked Porter (a very dark beer).
Wikipedia helped me with this: Smoked porter is a dark, robust
ale that combines traditional chocolate and caramel porter malts with grains
exposed to wood smoke (like alder or beechwood) and offers a balance of sweet
roastiness and savory, campfire-like smokiness.
I tried it and didn’t like it.
We were also served some food: Nacho chips (from Costco) and Kelp Salsa (exactly what it sounds like),
The snack was good after all of the beer and
if you didn’t know you were eating seaweed, the salsa was fine. I also tried one bite of salmon jerky and
didn’t like it (I’ve liked it in the past).
And yes, that same fellow drank Ellen’s samples.
Our last stop was just outside Juneau – we could see the cruise ships in the distance.
We are at a sculpture called Tahku.
Tahku (comes from the Tlingit term for "fierce winds") is a bronze sculpture of a breaching humpback whale standing at 25 feet (7.6 m) tall and weighing 6.5 tons. It is accompanied by a fountain that replicates the effect of water streaming off of the whale as it breaches.
The fountain's "whale
breach sequence" is five minutes long and takes place every thirty
minutes. The sculpture was created by the “Whale Project” to
commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Alaska becoming a State.
We returned to
the ship and headed for The Galley for Dinner. I ordered an Impossible Burger and Fries – a
little over but I wasn’t that hungry.
The show
tonight is in The Manor, whose entrance of lights and mirrors is
literally scary. The Manor is located on
two levels. A crew member showed us the
upstairs door (unmarked) and we went in and got seats. This level is essentially a bar with tall bar
stools and tables. But the view of the
stage is perfect.
The show, “Duets with Up With a Twist”,
was the best show on this cruise and one of the best we've seem on a cruise in a long time. It involved three vocalists, two women and a guy, a trumpet player (guy), a drummer (guy), a guitarist (woman), and a bass player (woman). Most of the songs involved just two of the singers but some used all of them. They were terrific – the vocals, the instruments. They did “Perfect Symphony” (Ed Sheeran),
and “Rewrite the Stars” (Zendeya and Zac Efron from the 2017 movie, “The Greatest Showman” – time flies).
The set started off with Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe” using an arrangement that make the song unrecognizable but very entertaining. The seats were uncomfortable and my leg was hurting so we reluctantly left before the final song, Hoping they’ll do another show. (NOTE - they did but it was a "ticket show" - dinner and a show - $35 and it was sold out and "standing only").
It didn’t seem like it but I logged 10,708 steps
plus another thousand on ship,
explaining the leg pain.
Took some
acetaminophen (there you go) for the ache.
Lights out at 10 PM.
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