June 18, 2011

It’s been a few days since I’ve written on here.  We’ve been to Petersburg for one night – slept at Omer Creek NFS campground for $3 took a 21 mile loop dirt road through wilderness where we drove to a lookout point overlooking the La’Conte Glacier.  On the way down the hill we saw lots of fresh bear scat which led to a bear walking down the road (Black bear).  We went into town, bought a new bulb for our flashlight, had a nice cup of hot coffee at the Java House, walked around town, down by the fishing piers, etc.  it was a rather lazy day.  At night we ate supper at a small park where we cooked and ate while an immature eagle watched us from overhead. 

After dinner we went to the library where I had about an hour to do some checking of emails, pay bills, etc. online. We went to an “RV Staging” area where we slept for 2 hours and then went to the ferry terminal to wait for our 1:15 AM departure to Juneau.  After 12 hours on the ship we arrived yesterday at 1 pm and immediately drove to the Mendenhall Glacier campground.  While on the ship nearing Juneau we saw a huge humpback whale surface – it played near the ship for several minutes, but my camera was down in the truck L.

Here we have full electric, water and sewer hookups – I had made reservations here for 4 nights and paid for it six months ago so it feels “free” J.  After setting up we both took an hour nap, a nice walk, a shower (yes, two separate ones as they were free and nice and HOT), then dinner.  After dinner while I was in the camper and Marty in the screened in porch, a nice sized black bear came ambling down the road – in no hurry and didn’t seem to be looking for anything.  I got some pics of him after rushing to get my camera out of the truck. 

Later we took another brief walk and saw a porcupine casually eating in a small willow shrub so I got pics of him too.

Would you believe we slept till 8:45 AM after going to bed at 9:30 last night?  Today is decent weather, some clouds, but at least not rainy yet.

We went to the Mendenhall Glacier today so I'll put up a couple pics of that.  Then we visited the AK Brewery - sorry, no pics, just a 12 pack of their Amber beer :)

The Arctic Tern migrates 12,000 miles one way twice a year!  Incredible...and it's not a very big bird.

I don't have the name  of these yet, but the flowers in a recently glaciated area are beautiful!  Many small.