We were supposed to spend the morning doing a drive by to see the Dawes Glacier. In fact, the name of the cruise is the Dawes Glacier cruise. Buuuut, when we got on the boat, we were given an itinerary change. Apparently, the Dawes Glacier recently calved pretty significantly, and our captain didn't feel that he could safely navigate the ship close enough to give us a good view. We were dissapointed to not see that glacier, but happy that we didn't have to worry about a Titanic moment! The trip from Ketchikan to Juneau was supposed to take the night and half the next dayand wind through the inside passage, up Endicott Arm to the Dawes Glacier and back down Endicott Arm into the inside passage. Instead, we sailed the inside passage mostly overnight and pulled into Juneau somewhere around 9:30 a.m. instead of 3:00 in the afternoon.
Since we missed the Dawes Glacier, I took that opportunity to see the Mendenhall Glacier. Bruce said he was still tired, so he stayed on the boat. I got off and caught a shuttle to the US Forest Service's Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center. I took my tripod and my new graduated neutral density filter and spent considerable time playing with my camera settings, using the new filters, figuring out (again) how to attach the new filters, playing with the timer, etc. As I was packing up, a couple asked if I could take their picture with their iPhone, so I took a few shots for them to choose from. They thanked me and said they were so happy to have a professional photographer take their picture! I had to correct them, letting them know that photography is my retirement hobby that I'm just learning. But, they appeared to be happy with their pictures, and I was happy with mine, so win-win! I've decided I don't like the blurry, flat water that is tending to be popular right now and prefer to have the realistic water and shaky reflection instead of the smooth water for the smoother reflection. It just looks too fake to me. The ND filter did keep the late morning sun from burning out the top of the glacier, though, and that was awesome!
After spending the morning at the glacier, I went back to the ship for lunch with Bruce. Our afternoon excursion was panning for gold. Our guide picked us up from the docks and drove us out to the Jualpa Mine Camp.on Gold Creek in the Last Chnce Basin. I was expecting a wooden sluice, playing around in the water until you found the metal that was planted there, kind of like the gem sluicing at fairs. Instead, he put us in the creek with pans.
Of course, we didn't scrape the bottom of the creek. We got pans that already had dirt and rocks in them, obviously seeded with gold. We did work those pans in water from Gold Creek, though. Once we carefully got rid of most of the rocks and dirt, we took our pans to the table so we could use an eyedropper to suck out our gold.
Of ourse, we were both afraid we'd lose gold if we let too much of the dirt flow out! We came home with two small vials with a tiny amount of plasser gold and more dirt than we should have left!
Neither the shuttle driver nor our gold panning guide gave much of a tour of downtown. They did point out the capital building and the governor's mansion, but I didn't get pictures of them. Being late in the season, much of the tourist part was closed down. After hanging out at the glacier and being on my feet for gold panning, my foot was really sore, so I really didn't feel like walking through town. So we just went back to the ship. It was only a little over an hour before the gangway was scheduled to go up anyway. Next stop, Skagway!
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