Day 8,  Thursday, May 27

This morning we woke up early and we were already docked at Skagway.  The White Pass Rail Depot was right at the dock.  The train took us up to the summit.  It followed the path that the early miners travelled to get to the Yukon gold mines.  No gold was found near Skagway, but that was where the miners bought most of their supplies.  At some places on the ride it was a sheer drop off. 

After the 3.5 hour train trip we returned to the ship and had lunch.  We then went back into town.  The main part of town consists of only two blocks.  Most of the shops are jewelry stores - I really think at least 80% were jewelry stores.  We went into several of the stores but did not buy anything.  I did not find anything as pretty as my rings so we left empty-handed.  I did hear one man say his wife has just spent $52,000.

Today was our warmest day and we were glad to return to the ship.  Tonight was Italian in our dining room.  We once again decided we wanted to eat alone.  After the meal, we sat on our balcony.  The ship was supposed to leave at 8:30 but it did not.  We were wondering why since everyone had been told several times to back on the ship by 7:45.  About 8:50 a bus load of people got off at the end of the dock.  We think their tour just did not get them back on time.  We heard later that the captain was not happy.  We will be sailing all night.

Day 9:  Friday, May 28

When we woke up this morning we were in Juneau.  This is the only capital city in the US that can only be reached by boat or plane.  There are not any roads into the city.  We had scheduled our helicopter ride to Mendenhall Glacier for 8:30.  It took us about 20 minutes to get to the airport.  First we had to watch a safety DVD.  Then each of us had to put boots over our shoes.  The soles had short metal spikes on them to help us from falling on the glacier.  The helicopter ride was beautiful. 

When we landed on the glacier, all you could see was ICE.  To the right of us there were slabs of jagged ice.  We had to walk very carefully.  We were told the reason the ice is blue is that it is so deep (over 300 ft) that it absorbs all the colors of the light spectrum except the color blue and it is reflected back up to the surface.  At one point there was a cervice with water pouring through it.  Our guide showed us how to get down and drink from it.  Most of the people decided not to do it.  We decided since this would probably be our only chance to taste glacier pure water, we would do it.  The getting down was not hard, the taste was cold and delicious, the getting up was harder but we did it.  We were on the glacier for about 30 minutes and I am so glad we had warm clothes.  I cannot write the words to describe the beauty we saw today.

After lunch, back on the ship, we were able to see hunchback whales.  They were very large.  After dinner we attended the production show called Piano Man.  It was  good and the costumes were beautiful.  The music  highlighted piano songwriters like Neil Sedaka, Billy Joel,  and others. 

We have decided to make it an early night.  It is now 10:15 and it is still light outside.  It does not get dark until around midnight here.  I hope to be asleep before then.  Please make sure to look at all our pictures on Shutterfly.