The Ambitious Odometer: {Road Trip} Day Eleven

Oh, Juneau, you shy little thing... What state capital gets the reward for the most remote capitol steps challenge to date??? Yep, JUNEAU!

So, noon yesterday we were jumping for joy in front of the Arctic Circle sign and noon today...

after an entire night of driving straight through...at least we had some simply breathtaking scenery on the Haines Highway...

TWO border crossings from Alaska into Yukon into British Columbia and back into Alaska...

and a two and a half hour taxi cruise from Haines...which I'll get to later, but was an event all by itself...

we were running up Juneau's state capitol building steps...

Hallelujah...our trip to Alaska is COMPLETE!

Sooo, let me back up a bit...

We were stressed from pretty much the time we left the Arctic Circle to the time we arrived at the boat dock that we were going to miss the boat! And, getting to Juneau is NOT easy... There are cars there, but you can't actually drive a car there... As our bus driver in Juneau said, "There are 3 ways to arrive in Juneau - by boat, by plane or by birth canal."

So, obviously we chose boat... I searched high and low for a boat that would go to Juneau (from somewhere that we COULD get to by car), and that wasn't easy, either. Juneau is a popular cruise ship port, but not a lot else that I could find...

But, I did eventually find a day cruise that takes passengers to Juneau and back in one day, so we signed up...

That proved to be interesting... It was basically a mom and pop ferry business that shuttled passengers from a couple different pick up locations to Juneau and from there to a bus that dropped off at the airport, as well. So, it was a modge podge of stuff, but we got there!

Our captain was a trip. He was often seen steering the 40+ passenger catamaran with his feet, and here he is eating dinner while taking us all home...

Yep, that's for real...and it totally worked for him...

He was, though, very good at finding wildlife and was not afraid to pull right up to it... We got to see a lot of the same animals that we saw on our cruise to Kenai Fjords National Park, but we got a lot closer, which was awesome...

Still hard to capture on camera, but the whales were amazing... We saw groups of 4-8 at a time and would see them blow...

and then their backs as they surfaced...

and lastly, their tails...

We even saw 3 jump in the air in sequence. I think that this is called breaching. But, of course, I didn't get a picture of that in time...

We loved watching the salmon fishermen, as well...

All was well as long as you were holding on tightly if you were out on the deck viewing wildlife, and the captain decided to move on. Warning everyone of sudden movement wasn't his forte, but that's all good, we didn't lose a child overboard, thankfully.

Of course, he boasted that in 28 years they'd never had a passenger go overboard. Good to know...but I'm not sure I believe him...just kidding...or maybe not...

Once we arrived in Juneau, we boarded a bus, made a drop at the airport, and were then transported to downtown Juneau. It was cloudy and drizzly, true to form, from what I've read...

On the way to the state capitol, I found so many pretty, but wet, flowers!

{this makes me so excited to get my peonies in the ground this fall}

First stop, the Alaska State Capitol...

for B's 34th set of state capitol building steps scaled!

From there, we stopped next door at the Juneau-Douglas City Museum for a picture with the totem pole...

We walked around a bit and grabbed lunch at the uber popular, Tracy's King Crab Shack right downtown by the dock...

After our time in downtown Juneau, the bus picked us back up, and we made a stop at Mendenhall Glacier, on the outskirts of town...

It was so neat to see this glacier up close on foot, rather than from on a boat...

B wasn't feeling so well...too much king crab, I think, so Hubby & I took turns with the girls at the glacier...

It had a beautiful parklike setting surrounding it...

From there, we headed back to the boat, and back to Haines. At this point, we were pretty exhausted from our 36+ hours of straight travel, and grabbed a room in downtown Haines to crash for the night...

Beginning the slow, but steady, trek HOME tomorrow...

More {Road Trip} 2017 Fun

Day One - A Presidential Start

Day Two - Getting Corny

Day Three - Oh, Canada! + Happy Birthday, Hubby

Day Four - Alaska Highway - Dawson Creek, BC to Muncho Lake, BC

Day Five - Alaska Highway - Muncho Lake, BC to Whitehorse, YT

Day Six - Well, Hello ALASKA!

Day Seven - Icebergs, Glaciers, and Fjords, Oh My!

Day Eight - All Around Anchorage + the Parks Highway to Fairbanks