Juneau, AK

Today we arrived in Juneau, Alaska around 7 am. I spent the morning exploring the town while Bob took a float plane trip over the glaciers and ice! He loved it! "It was unbelievable! Perfect, no clouds, lots of sun!" He saw “hundreds” of glaciers. The ice and snow were over a half mile deep.

I'm going to put in several photos that Bob took from the plane. He has lots more if anyone would like to see them all!

After he came back we went up the Mt Roberts Tram and had a great view of Juneau.

In the afternoon we headed off to Alaska Gastineau Mill & Gold Mine for a tour. Mining was start there in 1915. We walked underground in the conveyor tunnel through which 12 million tons of gold bearing ore was transferred from the Coarse Crushing plant to the mill for fine grinding and recovery of the gold. We wore hard hats and ear plugs. A miner gave us the tour and even started up the drill to let us hear and see it work. It was great! And the best part was we got to pan for gold! I think Bob did better than I did! We have a small bottle with gold flakes and tiny garnets! I enjoyed finding the garnets.

Back to the ship. I located the Public Library just off the pier where wireless internet was available. I caught up on e-mails as I sat and worried I would lost track of time and watch the ship 100 feet outside the window float away! I decided it wasn’t worth the stress and headed back to the ship. Then I decided to try to catch the wireless internet from the ship deck! Yes! It worked….so I was able to continue using it until the ship left the pier.