Alaskan Vacation Pt 2 - Ketchikan & Juneau

Friday 8/2 we arrived at Ketchikan around 7am but it was a short day in port – we had to be back on the boat by 2pm.  I had done a little research on Trip Advisor before we went and the Great Alaskan Lumberjack show got great reviews so we decided to do that and go to the Totem Bight State Park.  We didn’t get any amazing pics at the lumberjack show but it was pretty entertaining.  They had two teams and they would race each other to cut through logs using chainsaws, hand saws, etc.  They also did log-rolling where two guys get on a log and try to roll the log to make their opponent lose their balance and fall.  One of the guys ended up falling pretty hard…doing the splits…and he split his pants…LOL.  Talk about a rough day at work!

We didn’t have a lot of time to check out the little town because our bus was headed out to Totem Bight State park.  We had a pretty long bus ride to get there but our tour guide was pretty entertaining.  You definitely cannot just walk or take a shuttle to Totem Bight – you have to book a tour to get there.  Once we got there, we had a little guided walk through some totem poles and they explain all about what the symbols mean on the poles.

After we got back from Totem Bight state park it was time to get back on the ship so we headed back to relax and then get ready for dinner that night.  There was a magic show that night by Garry Carson and his wife who normally do shows at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.  It was a fun little family oriented show that lasted around half an hour.  Some of it was a little cheesy but there were some very good tricks!

Saturday 8/3 we got to Juneau at 8am and had a nice long day at port since we didn’t have to be back on the boat until 8pm.  We signed up for a whale watching tour with Dolphin Jet Boat Charters.  There were about 15 of us on a small boat and we rode around for a couple hours looking for whales.  It was a pretty successful tour – we saw a big group of whales surfacing and diving.

After a couple hours of whale watching, we got on a bus to go to Mendenhall Glacier.  I wish we had a little more time to wander around at Mendenhall (we had one hour there and you really need two if you want to fully explore and check out the visitor’s center).  The glacier and short hike there were very pretty!  There’s also a cool waterfall there called Nugget Falls.  We tried to go look for some bears along the trails but we didn’t find any – just some salmon.

On the way back from Mendenhall, our bus driver was nice enough to make a stop at the McCauley Salmon Hatchery where we got to see the salmon leaping up their salmon ladder.  When the salmon decide to spawn they try to go back up the streams to where they were born to lay their eggs.  The hatchery has created what they call a “ladder” where the salmon can go up the stream to the hatchery.  The workers then harvest the eggs to hatch fish and keep them safe from predators.  And they eat the adult salmon that swim upstream.  At that one hatchery alone, they get over 150 million salmon per year.  I wouldn’t have minded spending some more time there and actually going inside but I was really glad we at least got to stop their on the way back to town.

By the time we got back to town, we were all pretty darn hungry so we headed to the world famous Tracy’s Crab Shack to get some King Alaskan Crab legs.  Have you ever seen the TV show “Deadliest Catch”?  Well that’s where this place gets their crab legs.  They had fresh King crab legs in from Nome Alaska so we were pretty excited.  Amanda got some shrimp dish because she doesn’t like crab, Will got a pound of crab legs and Ryan & I shared a combo (Mom/Joe also got a combo).  The combo came with around ¾lb of King crab legs, a cup of crab bisque and some crab cakes.  It was SOOO good!

Once we had stuffed ourselves to the gills, we wandered around the shops in town for a while.  I bought a cool book of Alaskan bear quilt patterns, mom bought a cross-stitch pattern, Will bought a fancy new knife, and Ryan got a bunch of caramel corn.  One thing about the Alaskan ports: they all have a ridiculous amount of shops (especially jewelry shops).  Not only do they have a lot of shops, but they have the exact same shops in every port.  We did more than enough wandering through town and shops and were exhausted when we got back to the ship.  We barely made it through dinner and got to bed, LOL.  What a long and fun day at port!

In case you missed it, here are the rest of the Alaskan vacation blog posts:
Part 1: Vancouver & Embarkation
Part 2: Ketchikan & Juneau
Part 3: Skagway & Scenic Cruising
Part 4: Denali National Park
Finale: Fairbanks & Going Home