Today our wheels finally touched Alaska. We arrived in Juneau at 6:00am and had to promptly move the motorcycles off the ferry. That meant being up early to have everything packed and ready to go. Marty and I rolled our bikes off about 6:15am. Jane left via the passenger deck. Clif was continuing on to Skagway and so he got to sleep in. (A review: Clif is meeting up w/Charlie and Tom in Whitehorse later today. That's about 130 miles from Skagway which is two stops further on the ferry.)

We had a great day in Juneau, the capital of Alaska. The Mendenhall Glacier is the premier attraction. We were able to check into the hotel right away (at about 7:00am) and then we headed off to breakfast followed by the glacier visitor's center. We beat the busloads of cruise ship people who came later. We were able to hike out on one of the trails to Nuggett Creek Falls, as close to the glacier as you can get without taking a plane tour. The glacier has "calved" a number of pieces which are floating in Mendenhall Lake. Lots of great pictures as you can see. The deep blue is the distinctive color of a glacier. I panned around in movie mode to try and give a sense of the whole valley. Click here to view the movie.

After finishing up at Mendenhall, we headed into downtown Juneau. There were a total of four large cruise ships in port (the ferry docks 14 miles from downtown because it's less expensive there). The town was bustling with people and all of the tourist stores reminded us of St. Thomas and other Carribbean islands that cater to the cruise trade.

We hit the Visitor's Center and then had lunch. After lunch, we walked around downtown quite a bit. Then we headed to the Alaska State Museum which had been recommended to us by several people. We spent two hours there and absorbed as much about Alaska's history and native peoples as possible. Then we wandered around some more before having dinner.

We're beat from the long day but happy that we got to do so much. We're also happy to have had a chance to spend time with Marty. Tomorrow we're going to try and see the fish hatchery. Then it's back to the ferry terminal to board for the 48-hour trip to Seward.