Juneau, Alaska (06-21-14)

Who knew that Juneau is in a rain forest?? Tongass National Forest, situated in southeast Alaska,  is the largest national forest in the U.S. and most of it is a rain forest.  I suppose we could have guessed by looking at the forecast.

As a state capital, Juneau probably ranks as one of the more difficult ones to get to. The only way to get there is by boat or by plane.  We took the ferry from Skagway.

The day we arrived was beautiful and the two and a half hour ferry ride was easy and uneventful.   This is the Juneau area.







Having seen the weather forecast we elected to take advantage of the nice weather to push on and go check out Mendenhall Glacier. The information about that will be in another post.

In our research of  things to do in Juneau, we found out about a small mining museum and decided that should be on our list of things to do on our second day- we figured if it was going to rain, we might as well be in a museum.  Except, much of this museum is outside.

Next on our agenda was a trip to the Red Dog Saloon, home to the Duck Fart- a shot that has Crown Royal, Baileys, and Kahlua.  Trying to get to the Red Dog was how we discovered that there are actually very few parking spots in Juneau that will fit us.  The only open one we found was a mile away, which meant….yup- a mile walk in the rain. 

We sure did feel like we deserved that drink, to warm us up! It was pretty good, and we enjoyed the live piano music while we ate our lunch.  These guys are good at getting people involved with the songs they are playing.

One of our adventures took us to Eagle Harbor, which is known for it’s concentration of Bald Eagles.  The salmon were jumping out of the water all over the place- plenty of Eagle food around!

We saw tons of Eagles- sometimes as many as a dozen in one tree! There were a lot of juveniles around as well, and for the first time, we got to see some courting, where a pair of eagles fly together, swooping apart and then together again.

The scenery itself was worth the drive out there- very dramatic and gorgeous.

The Alaskan Brewing Co. is located in Juneau and although I don’t feel compelled to visit every brewery I come across, I wanted to check this one out. I like their Alaskan White, which is similar to Blue Moon. 

They don’t give tours of the brewery itself but they do have a tasting tour where they talk about the history of the brewery and some of their beers. They are fairly unique in that they don’t have one master brewer, they have 7 brewers.  They also allow their employees to try their hand at making small batches of beer-called Rough Drafts.  If visitors like it, they make bigger and bigger batches.





There was plenty to keep us busy during our 5 days in Juneau.  We probably could have stayed longer but we wanted to book our return ferry when we booked the ferry to get there, so we guessed at how long we'd want to be there.