Spruce Meadows RV Park, Juneau, AK, USA

Tuesday, 2 August 2011
Spruce Meadow RV Park, Juneau, AK, USA Hi All,

I have posted some basic information about our trip on the "About" page, and have updated the blog, do take a look.

OUCH! I completed this post yesterday, and when I tried to publish it, well, it got lost in the ether somewhere; so here goes a second attempt...

Monday, 1 August, 2011
Spruce Meadows RV Park, Juneau, AK, USA

Monday, it was raining, so we spent the morning in camp. After breakfast, Lin worked on her email while I read, and then we switched places and I downloaded pictures from my cameras and worked on the blog while she read. By noon, I was ready to publish my blog entry, and that's when I lost it; drat! So we had lunch and drove over to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor's Center. We enjoyed watching a brief video about the glacier and looked around the very well done Visitor's Center. They show a good bit of interesting information about the glacier and its environs. Then, we went downtown to visit the Alaska State Museum and the Capitol. The Museum is small but has a good collection and we enjoyed viewing old pictures of Alaska and all the collected artifacts showing how the First Nation peoples lived. (First Nation is a Canadian term for the native inhabitants of the land; I find it very appropriate and think it makes much good sense). By the time we finished our visit it was too late to go over to the State Capitol, so we we joined the Degeners for a picnic at the beach near their house. We enjoyed hot dogs and 'smores over a wood fire, watched the bald eagles soaring over the bay, and even got a glimpse of the sun as it set. A very nice day.

Sunday, 31 July 2011
Spruce Meadows RV Park, Juneau, AK, USA

Sunday morning, we drove off the ferry without any problems and quickly set up at Spruce Meadows RV Park. After setting up, we contacted Sheila and Alan Degener, friends who have lived in Juneau since the mid '90s. We visited them last in 1997 on our first trip to Alaska. At that time, they had just recently graduated from college, and relocated to Juneau. Now they are long-time residents and have three very active boys. We met them at the Visitor's Center by the Mendenhall Glacier, and hiked up the the waterfall where the glacier enters the lake. There was a lot of ice on the lake, calved off from the glacier and it is a pretty spectacular sight. We had a good visit with them, and then it was time to head back to camp.

Saturday, 30 July 2011
Prince Rupert RV Park, Prince Rupert, BC, Canada

We boarded the Alaska Marine Highway System ferry M/V Matanuska at about 7:30 AM, and sailed from Prince Rupert at 9:15; we arrived in Juneau a bit early at 10:30 AM on Sunday after a smooth and uneventful passage up the Inner Passage with stops at Ketchikan, Wrangell, and St. Petersburg. We were able to get off the boat for an hour in Ketchikan, and did a bit of shopping at a nearby shopping center.

Here are some pictures taken over the past several days: