A day in Juneau

Cruising into Juneau provided us with some pretty views. The town is really cute, all of the building's colors popping against the backdrop of greenery. And I loved the tram gliding up into the mist. Today our shore excursion started with a trip to the Mendenhall Glacier, followed by some whale watching.

It dawned on me that the bright yellow rain jacket I bought for the trip - to be easily spotted in a crowd by the husband - made me resemble the Gorton's fisherman. I remember their fish sticks from back in the day.

I must admit that the last time we went whale watching in Juneau with the girls, we saw an impressive display of these massive creatures feeding. They used the bubble net strategy and we had some amazingly close views where we could clearly see their baleen. This time we had to be content with the humpbacks blowing or spouting off in the distance, plus some dorsal fins. Everyone on the boat oohed and aahed when we spied the occasional tail. But that was about it.

Our silver lining on the rather disappointing whale watching tour was that the boat sold local beer for the husband, while I was oh-so-happy to get my hands on a Diet Dr Pepper after being relegated to mediocre-to-me Diet Cokes on the cruise ship.