Juneau

Today was glacier day: two for the price of one. Or: buy one, you could've gotten the other free anyway. We maybe should have thought through our options in Juneau more carefully, given that we knew we were going to be cruising past a glacier a few hours later and glaciers really kind of all look the same. But at least at the first one we got to get out and hike a little.

We took a busride through dowtown Juneau to get to the Mendenhall Glacier, and got all the town gossip from our tour guide, like about the raging debate on whether or not to build a road that would allow Juneau to be reached by car instead of just boat or plane, or how long the drive-thru line was the day the first McDonalds opened (1 mile). At Mendenhall we got to watch climate change in action, looking at photos from 50 years ago when the glacier was right at the visitor center's doorstep, and then looking out the window to see the glacier looming half a mile away, a gulf of melted ice water now separating the two. I'm glad we can at least tell Jack that he's seen a glacier, even if he won't remember it. At this rate there won't be any left by the time he's grown.

Jack couldn't have cared less about the glacier, though. As far as he was concerned, the point of coming here must have been to make use of the rocks deposited by the glacier's retreat, which were perfect throwing rocks. We spent quite a while in a valiant effort to repatriate all the rocks on the shore to the water, but the supply of rocks was inexhaustible and Jack eventually gave up.

He would try again later, once we had hiked up to see the glacier itself, to similar effect. We admired the raging waterfall and the blueness of some of the glacial ice, pointed out to each other the bits of floating ice that resembled other things (like China or a hippopotamus), and tried to keep Jack from falling into the icy waters he was so focused on heaving rocks into.

I think he got a lot out of this visit.

Back on the boat, we set off toward the Tracy Arm of Sawyer Glacier (I have no idea what that means but it's what the captain said). We huddled together for warmth, some people bought expensive warm drinks that were really only lukewarm, and we all watched as the scenery turned over from pine tree-lined shores that reminded me of Northern Minnesota



to a dramatic arctic landscape more reminiscent of New Zealand but really unlike anything I'd ever seen before.



The glacier itself was pretty secondary. The stunning parts were what the glacier had left behind, the steep walls it had carved, and islands of ice too massive to fit my image of icebergs. I'm not sure how the captain navigated us through such a narrow channel riddled with icy obstacles, but I applaud him for it. It was the best part of the cruise. On the boat, at least.