July 30-31, 2022 Days: 63-64: Juneau
We had a somewhat quiet weekend. The McBrides went to Skagway on Friday and will come back Monday. We were supposed to go to Skagway Friday-Sunday and hang out with them there, but the weather wasn’t ideal. The forecast was for 3 foot seas, which isn’t terrible, but it would have been for at least 6 hours, and that didn’t sound too fun. We would also have to leave pretty early on Sunday morning and that wouldn’t give us a ton of time in Skagway, so we decided not to go. We were bummed since Skagway is one part of Southeast Alaska we didn’t get to see. We are thinking maybe in the future we will trailer our boat to Skagway and boat from there. (Skagway is the only place in Southeast Alaska we can drive to.)
Saturday July 30, 2022 Day 64: We woke up and had a slow start to the day. (Another rough night with Ellen.) I wanted to get donuts, so that’s what we did. We went to Breeze In for donuts. They were pretty good and had a huge variety. After getting donuts we drove across the bridge into Douglas. We followed the road to the very end. There was a lot of fog, but it was still beautiful outside. (We did not take the road up to the ski resort.) After that we came home for naps and quiet time.
After quiet time we were ready to go out and do some more exploring. We stopped at Zerelda’s Bistro. Food was good and with full tummies we were ready to venture on. We went to The National Shrine of Saint Therese. (The McBrides went there Friday while we stayed home for naps and quiet time.) While we were driving around The Shrine, we saw a small black bear. It was in the road then ran up a forested hill. We were able to watch it a bit and the kids even got some pictures of it. After watching the bear we went to the parking lot of a little trail and there we saw a marmot. We watched the marmot for a long time, and then did the little hike.
We then drove to The Shrine. The grounds were beautiful. The actual church is on a little path/peninsula. It is a heavily forested little patch with the ocean surrounding it. On the path to The Shrine we saw another marmot. After we walked through the church and around the church we went to the labyrinth. We all walked the labyrinth, the big kids did it twice though.
I still wasn’t quite ready to go home so we picked one of my camera lenses up that we left on the boat along with our ipad, then we got McDonalds for the kids’ dinner and kept on driving. We drove to the end of the road in Juneau (going south this time). When we turned around we saw a porcupine! It was the first time the Kids and I had seen a porcupine! Ryan did the honors of taking the picture. We explored some more of the roads on the westside of Juneau, above downtown and getting into Mt. Roberts. Finally it was getting too late so we headed home.
Bear Count: Today: 1 Total: 32
Sunday July 31, 2022 Day: 65 We are in our last week of staying in Juneau and we check out of this Airbnb on Thursday (it was as long as we could get it so we will get a hotel for a few days, then head home on the weekend, Chris needs to finish up the work week). Since we are leaving soon and Chris works we spent today getting ready to head home. Chris changed the oil on the boat, and replaced the prop again. (I think we have tried 2 other props besides this one, but we keep going back to this one.) We packed up a few things from the house and loaded them onto the boat. When Chris was done with that he picked us up and we returned a few things at Costco. We went to the harbor and walked around the docks for a bit dreaming of boats that we may get one day.
At midnight Chris and I heard a noise outside. We looked out the window and a bear was trying to get into the trash can! The hosts went outside and chased it away. I’m sure that is a nuisance for them, but it was really cool for us to see!
Bear Count: Today:1 Total: 33
Ryan’s Thoughts: We saw a bear, and 2 marmots, a porcupine, and one or 2 deer. (We aren’t sure if we saw one deer twice, or two different deer.)
Lillian’s Thoughts: We went to a church and we saw 1 bear and then 2 marmots, 1 porcupine, and 1 or 2 deer.
