Tracy Arm trip

Yesterday was an interesting day…we walked around town waiting for the tour boat to leave for Tracy Arm Fjord,  did some Christmas shopping and had Pel Menis for lunch. These are some sort of a dumpling with a meat center, cooked in curry and boiled in a broth. To die for! After that, we went to the dock but Alex's boat was not there.  I sent a text indicating we were at the dock. Alex called me back and said, “We had to leave without you!” You were late! As we approached, Richard mentioned that they boat must have gone to get diesel before the tour. We had been told to be there at 1:00 p.m. and, of course, I was there at 12:45 p.m. EARLY!

Alex ranted about how much preparation had gone into our getting this trip at no cost to us. The inconvenience, the trouble, the planning…all for naught. I got ticked and upset…we followed directions to the letter and he was bitching me out. I started to give it back and he laughed and said, “Mom…gotcha!” The boat arrived and I gave him a punch. Had a beautiful trip and the best was hearing the comments from the passengers about the “Naturalist” and his presentation. They had NO clue this was our son. One lady said, “He is good.” Another young man, a recent college grad told his mother, “He is going to be so successful.” As the trip continued, people realized Alex was our son and they made the most incredible comments about his helpfulness, his charisma, his grasp of culture, lore, history and nature and he isn’t even a local. We had a great trip but enjoyed watching our son be so professional and passionate about what he is doing. I mentioned to him that he most likely could not give a three minute nature presentation about either Michigan or Florida, two states he lived in for years.

Bad photo...cut the kid's head off...but this is a hunk of glacier that the boat deckhand netted and passed around. This ultimately went into the cooler.

We travelled a fair distance via boat, but first had to load passengers on our boat from a cruise liner. The huge cruise liner just came into port, docked, opened a side door on the water side, opened another door and attached to our boat a hydraulic gang plank. 26 people were off loaded onto our boat and off we went. Reverse off loading happened with the cruise folks. In the meantime, we saw ice bergs, two glaciers, one of which was calving. Dinner was served on the trip and we had a “bag lunch” consisting of a turkey wrap sandwich that probably weighed a pound, an apple, chips, cookies. Drinks were also served by Alex and the deckhand, Kevin. Kevin later took a huge net and scooped up some iceberg chunks to put in the cooler to keep the soda and beer cool. I asked about that and Kevin, a young man from Boston, just working this summer here in Juneau, indicated, “Why not? It’s cold and free!” He had a point.

 

 Saw some harbor seals along the way and some incredible land formations. Glacial carving is so obvious and so pretty. Also saw some magnificent waterfalls as we cruised along.

 

What I am enjoying so much is the natural beauty here. I have visited before but I just don't remember being in awe of all I must have seen.

 

The glacial striations and rock carving and mountain effects of glacier movement over time causes incredible formations.

 

 Sawyer glacier. The color variation was amazing. The sun shining on the rocks and on the glacier glimmered at times. Some rock formations look like they are covered in rust or iron.