TO JUNEAU AND BEYOND

We get all claustrophobic when crunched in the slow-moving sludge of shoulder-to-shoulder tourists along main street shopping places.

To show we were in Juneau, I took these photos, trying to avoid the crowds:

 Juneau, like the other Inside Passage Alaskan coastal towns, is built right into the rocky hillside

and can only spread upwards from the harbor:

Just a photo op:

Off of main street:

BEYOND Juneau was our adventure!

We took a small boat trip up the Tracy Arm Fjord to see the glacier at the end.

The steeply-sloping hillsides were running with water as if they were

massive green sponges being squeezed:

"Fjord" is exactly the right word.  Though this was Alaska, it reminded us

exactly of what we have seen in Norway:

The waterfalls look casual from a distance, but are actually power-packed as they enter the water:

It was sleeting.  The small boat was rocking.  The captain took us within reaching distance of this waterfall.

The stranger who took this photo was, of course, not familiar with my camera.

All these reasons mean this picture is fuzzy:

Astoundingly blue icebergs began to appear as we neared the glacier, even though we could

not yet see it:

First sight of the Tracy Arm Glacier, a wild, walled,

rugged one as compared to the sloping Mendenhall Glacier:

I had hoped to see a seal on an iceberg.

Ha!  Oodles of them - what a surprise!

Just one of hundreds:

  We were close, and experienced several calvings:

The blue ice is the most wondrous sight: