Juneau

Sunday, June 11, 2023

We got up at 4:00am in order to be ready to leave at 5:00 to get on the 7:00 flight to Seattle. Our friend Dave took us to the airport, which was super nice of him since it was so early. We got through security quickly and headed to McDonald’s for an Egg McMuffin. We are wandering our way along to the gate when suddenly Dave was standing next to us. I was very tired and it was truly like an apparition had just appeared. It turns out he volunteers at the airport and picked up a morning shift since he was going to be in the area anyway. Surprise!

Alaska Air was very nice, except that there are no screens in the seats. They had lots of movies available for you to watch on your phone. It was okay because there was a little tray that held your phone on the back of the seat in front of you. The screen was small, but it was something to do. We watched Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. I was entertained. After a quick stop in Seattle, we were on our way to Juneau. The second plane did not have a little place to put your phone so you had to hold it while you watched a movie. That’s dumb. I watched Anchorman: The Ron Burgundy story. It is a bad movie.

We got to Juneau at about 12:30, but had to wait until 2:00 to catch the shuttle. Our information said after we get off the plane we should go to the hospitality room to have our COVID test. The woman at the airport just checked us off a list and told us to wait until 2:00 when the bus would come. I thought we were off the hook for the covid test. There is absolutely nothing to do in the Juneau airport. There are four vending machines and a small gift shop. When the bus finally arrived, we found out we were being taken to the hospitality room. Oh no! It seemed the covid test was still on. We took tests yesterday and they were negative, but it’s still nerve-wracking to know that at the last minute they could just say no you can’t get on the boat.

The hospitality room was sort of like a gym with native art on the walls and lots of big round tables and chairs. We sat at a table. We ate snacks. We drank water. We wondered if they were going to give us covid tests. They did not seem to think they were going to give us covid tests, but I wasn’t going to ask and give anybody the idea.

After a while I did ask the lady at the desk how long we were going to be there. She said that there would be group activities in the afternoon and then we would shuttle to the ship.

We had some more snacks.

At 4:00 a native Alaskan man talked about the different kinds of ships that the natives built. He had little models that were very cute. Eventually he made some sense, but when he started things were really jig jaggedy. Everyone who is going to be on the boat had assembled. It turned out that people had been visiting downtown Juneau or going to the museum across the street while we were having snacks. It is unfortunate that we missed the information that would have given us something more fun to do than just sit at a table. Most of the people had come yesterday and were just arriving on their own, so it was just those of us who came today who ended up sitting in the room all day.

Our cabin is nice. There’s quite a bit of space to move around in the room, but there is next to no storage. There are two places to hang things, but they are short- you can’t hang a shirt without it dragging on the ground. We have mostly t-shirts so I rolled them and piled them on a shelf. Perhaps we will figure it out as time goes on.

We had a group meeting in the lounge. Lots of staff members introduced themselves. Travis, the lead expedition guide, is from Duluth. Someone else must be from Minnesota because they gave a whoop, then I raised my hand and waved. He shrugged and said,” Usually people from Minnesota are really quiet.” He is not wrong. When I get a chance I’ll tell him we are not actually natives. He told us we are going to ride on zodiac boats tomorrow up to a glacier and we should wear every single item of clothing that we brought along. I’m afraid I did not bring enough clothing. I was very hot when I was packing. It will be interesting tomorrow.

We met a delightful family at dinner – grandparents, granddaughter and grandson. The kids are 13 year old cousins. I had Penne Arrabiata. Keith had a steak. He said it was better than anything he had on the Viking cruise.

It’s almost 1am at home so I should wrap up. We are still in port so I can write this, but it took 30 minutes to transfer the picture. If you don’t see anything tomorrow, it means we can’t get internet – not that the boats sank.