Day 40 Tuesday 4 July 2017

We arrive in Skagway which was established in 1897 as part of the Klondike gold rush. The buildings are well preserved and the little township has a lot of atmosphere.  We are here as part of the 4 July celebrations.  Their street parade was excellent for a little place.  Lots of floats, vintage cars, except the one that did break down during the parade.  They were throwing lollies at the kids although a woman near us was thrown a T-shirt (she was probably a local).  We did a history walk and photographed some really interesting buildings and plaques where gunfights occurred and we finished up at the visitor centre, where we watched a really interesting gold rush documentary.

My favourite one was for the karaoke group whose mission statement was “Making Karaoke Great Again”.

We returned to the ship at 12.30 PM and just as many people were leaving the ship as getting on.  We had a fabulous lunch on deck of Pizza and hot chocolate.  One of the best pizzas I have eaten and it was a winning recipe from 2015.  Fabulous!!  Antonia would have been impressed – no pineapple. Although I must ask why we were having the 2015 winner and not the 2016 winner.

Day 39 Monday 3 July

This morning we arrived in Juneau which is the capital of Alaska. A population of 35000 and we added a third of the population with four cruise ships in town. From our veranda we took photos of a Bald Eagle and we saw a Golden Eagle but it was too far away for a photo opportunity.

We visited the Alaskan State Museum which helped us escape the rain and the museum was very good. They covered all history of Alaska. The traditional cultures of Athabascan, Alutiiq and Unangan.

From here we took the Mount Roberts Tramway for the view and the chance to see all the Bald Eagles – there was a chance…but it was a fat chance.  Thank goodness we saw the other Bald Eagle earlier otherwise it would have been very disappointing.

Heavily overcast and raining it made the view from the top difficult but it wasn’t too bad.  At the top they had a rehabilitated Bald Eagle, Lady Baltimore but we didn’t see any others. We watched a video on Alaska and there was a musical presentation from an excellent family group who perform their music against a backdrop of wonderful landscape and animal photography of the Alaskan area. An Alaskan version of the Von Trapp family.  The mother in travelling to Australia had been bitten by a kangaroo.

As our ship was leaving at 10.30 PM they had the 4 July fireworks that were pretty but rather underwhelming but they did their best and they had them in several positions so people could see them.

Day 39 Sunday 2 July 2017

A cruising day with a special lunch pairing of wine with courses of food.  I should have had three glasses of wine with my three courses but because Elizabeth doesn’t drink wine I wound up with 5.  I didn’t remember too much and spent most of the afternoon asleep - it was my bear hibernation impersonation. I think…I had a good time – a really good time.