Day Three dawned and we headed up to the breakfast buffet - I was already getting spoiled by the sheer volume not to mention variety of food available. We had a lazy morning in preparation for a busy afternoon. We had gotten word the night before that we were going to be able to go on the shore excursion we wanted - a flightseeing tour over four glaciers that landed at a wilderness lodge to have a big old salmon bake. Sounds good, huh?
Well, we didn't get to go.
Despite the fact that the tickets say "All shore excursions operate rain or shine," they canceled this one - and did not inform those people who were on the excursion that it was going to be canceled until you arrived at the meeting palce to leave. By that point, most of the other shore excursions had left and so we decided, what the hell, let's just wander around Juneau.
Well, we shopped a bit along the main drag, and just a little ways away from the dock was the Mount Roberts Tramway. We decided to take the tram up Mt. Gastineau and then we hiked for about three miles. Despite the fact that it was overcast, the views were spectacular. We saw a porcupine and some grouse (grouses? grice?). After coming back from our hike, we followed some of the walking tour of Juneau in this great book to find a statue of a nun feeding chickens. The statue was very modern, not what I expected at all, and we took many pictures with it... in fact, in Juneau we started a rather silly tradition regarding pictures.
A lot of stores in Alaska have huge stuffed animals outside - bears and eagles and timber wolves and whatever... and we took our pictures with pretty much every single one. We're goofy like that.
The ship was docked in Juneau for eight hours and we spent the great majority of that time in the city. On the way back to the boat we stopped at the Alaskan Fudge Company and got the best fudge I have ever had in my life. If you are wondering what to get me for Christmas or my birthday or just because you love me, click on that there link and order me up some Alaskan Chewy. Soooo goooood.
Back on the ship that night we headed to the casino again. It's addictive. We took the original $40 that we had taken in the night before and we played all those quarters. We were left with about $15 in winnings, I think... that is, we wer $25 down from when we walked in. Oh well. Still up overall, right?
We capped off the night by heading to the Observation Lounge (our favorite spot on the ship) to play cards and listen to the Glenn Miller tribute band. I believe that it was that night when we discovered the wonder of the banana smoothie. In the Lounge the bartender would make us these luscious banana smoothies where you couldn't even taste the alcohol. Again, sooo gooooood. We were to arrive in Skagway the following morning, so we went to bed *relatively* early, knowing that we could come back for banana smoothies at any time... and boy, we would abuse that privilege in the days to come.
Thus endeth Day Three.