day 23

545 the alarm went off and I was not excited about the 3 mile bike ride home. Will offered to bike me home which I took him up on. I got back at 640 (my boss was picking me up at 645) so I quickly stuffed all the rest of my stuff into my backpack and got changed. Jenice brought me to the breeze inn in lemon creek so I could grab a hot breakfast for the road. I got to the airport about 710 with my flight leaving at 800. but this is pretty standard for Juneau. There is one line of airport security and it took maybe 10 minutes to get through everything. I boarded the plane and fell back asleep quickly. Before I kenw it I was in seattle. I hung around this airport for a few hours before boarding for Minneapolis. As I was boarding, delta apparently has a new policy that they have someone checking that the carryone fits inside the carryon checker. My bag is large but it fits in the overhead compartment! They checked my bag (free of charge) and I was on my way back to minnestoa. Arrived at about 630 and had to wait until 715 for my bags. Mom and dad came and picked me up and my trip was all over.

day 22

Monday morning started off about as slow as Sundays did. About noon we finally were stirring and we went to pizzeria roma. I had the el roma sandwich which was quite filling. After will and I ate, we ventured to the shops. I had to be a tourist for the day and get all the last minute gifts I was supposed to get. Okay note to self… when you are supposed to bring back gifts to people you should probably have space in your suitcase to bring them back in. (I had no room for anything so I only got a few items). About 300 we got back to wills I packed up my overnight bag and biked home while will took a nap before work. I got home and started packing up my big suitcase making sure I could get everything to fit. I decided I was going to leave my tennis shoes in Juneau. Andy hall from the float planes was wanting a new pair of tennis shoes and mine fit him perfectly so I told him he could have them. This allowed just enough space for the few souveniors I had to pack. After I got everything packed up I went for a run ( a simple two miler) then hopped in the shower quickly and then got all dressed up for my last night in Juneau. I wore my dress and had my hair down. Nikki was coming out with me for a stop at flight deck (john was working until 700) and dinner at the hanger. It was a nice day out (blue sky) so the bike ride was not too bad. We stopped at a gas station to fillup our bike tires (henry the bouncer from imperial was there and helped us, a southern gentleman) then we parked our bikes at centennial hall and stopped by flight deck. Flight deck was a pretty popular place with lots of beer tasting tours heading through there. Also Mondays are quite busy with four ships in and all of them stay late. About 800 we headed to the hanger where megan was our waitress outside on the patio. John trickled his way over as did andy fritz when he was off work. After dinner nikki then decided it was time to head home (shes working during the days) so I walked her to the bikes then went back to the hanger. Matt was playing pool upstairs so I hung out there for awhile. I got to try the ginger shandy by Alaskan. Although I waited so long to try it I think I liked the club ale better. It was getting pretty late. I found tony and we went to the Viking and I hung out there until bar close. Will was running late and didn’t get off work until 100 with the half hour bike ride I was hanging out outside until 130 when he finally got home. I fell asleep on the recliner one more night knowing the next morning was going to come way too early.

day 21

Sunday morning did not come early at all. I ended up sleeping in until 10 then went and talked to will for like an hour before we decided to get up and go to sandpiper for breakfast. We got to sandpiper at about noon. I ordered the salmon omelet and will have the corn beef hash. After spending two days together will definitely pulled out the same color blue shirt as I had packed so we matched. It was kinda funny. Walking the streets with me he definitely got numerous stares from the local girls in town almost as if they were jealous of me? I don’t know. Then after breakfast we headed over to flight deck after meandering the streets for awhile and stayed there for three hours BS-ing with john the bartender. Brady was out working the float planes and I talked to him for a little bit. At about 4 I asked if I could get a ride home since he was driving right past my house but he said no (jerk) so I started the three mile trek home. I was supposed to be picked up by carter and brought out to echo cove, but carter never answered when I called. About a mile into my stroll home, Sam stresner the pilot that took me out in the float plane drove past and honked while I was talking on the phone to Scottie davis. Sam gave me a ride home. Once I got there I open the locked door to find my roommate Nikki unpacking her groceries. This was about 600. I then told her about everyone I had met and what all she needed to do before she left. Then even though she had been up since the wee early hours of Minnesota time I talked her into coming on a bike ride with me into downtown so I could introduce her to people and she could see what all there is to do. About 730 we left and got to jaded (megan’s boyfriend adams bar) right before he closed but I got to introduce her to them. Then we went to the hanger, the Viking, the imperial, the Alaskan and the rendezvous. My friend josh was working at rendezvous so I bought a drink and we continued to BS then I walked her to her bike so she could head home about 945. Then I was still hungry. (the only thing I had eaten was the salmon omelet and an order of fries at the flight deck) so I stopped by pel meni—russian dumplings. And ordered a ½ potatoe/ ½ meat one and ate it with Ivan (the bellhop at goldbelt the hotel that holds jaded) and the workers. Pelmeni usually gets the after bar rush of people. The dumplings were okay but pretty fatty –in the bottom of the thing was about two cups of butter. Then after I finished eating I headed out to find abby, megan and adam. The night was fun filled. I ran into matt again, john from flight deck, andy from the hanger and multitudes of other people. We ended up hanging out at the rendezvous for most of the evening and megan and adam were hanging out. Sunday nights is movie night so they were playing shutterisland on the big screen. John was buying everyone rounds and we were just having a grand ol time. Infact—this has never happened to me. At about 1230 Josh put a drink infront of me that I hadn’t ordered and apparently it was bought for me from this guy named Jeremy from across the bar! Crazy!! About 1250 as josh was giving out last calls will wakled into the bar surprised I was still coherent. Will then took me back to my recliner and that was my Sunday night.

day 20

The alarm going off at 700 am was way too early. I hopped in the shower and called up my friend josh. We went to a bagel place grabbed breakfast and headed to the wharf to catch out boat tour out to Tracy arm. We were both tired. In fact josh didn’t go to sleep and stayed up. He told me that Andy lost me last night and was concerned but I found a place to stay so it was no big deal. We got to sit in the front of the under part of the boat. There were about 35 other people onboard. We began our 2 hour ride out to Tracy arm at about 815. Along the way we were watching out for bear eating the mussels etc along the shore lines and we also were watching out for whales and orca. On the way out we found some whale spouts and a couple bald eagles hanging out on an iceberg. At about ten am we got to the bar of Tracy arm. What makes Tracy arm so special is that there is a very narrow (200 yards) across bar that you have to carefully maneuver through to get into the arm. There are buoys that mark the spot to go in-between and there are also markers that need to be aligned to a straight line behind you with a flashing light that will flash when you are entering through the correct spot. Once we got into Tracy arm there were numerous waterfalls and icebergs galore. We even found a huge iceberg that just flipped. You know they just flip when they are bright blue. It was gorgeous. We took about 30 minutes to get through the arm. At the end there are two glaciers, sawyer and south sawyer. South sawyer glacier you can go right up to depending on the size of the icebergs. Today the icebergs were pretty small and easy to maneuver through. (Easy for the captain I’d have no idea). The boat we were on was like a catamaran but only one buoy thing. There were plenty of harbor seals along the way. When we got there it started calving right away (parts of the glacier fall into the water) which results in a loud boom. We saw a harbor porpoise too. This spot so far back into Tracy arm is ideal for harbor seals to have their young because their natural predator (transient orca) echo system gets all messed up within the arm. We hung out at the glacier for about a half hour before heading back. We gave it a round of applause (josh’s idea... he was a deck hand for Allen marine the ship people) and sure enough just as the boat turned around and was heading out the large chunk to the right all collapsed into the water. We then worked our way back through the arm. As we got to the bar the large blue iceberg was no longer the vibrant blue. Crazy! We did not hit bottom through the bar and started the two hour trek back. Along the way we found a family of 4 female orca with a couple calves. Usually orca have a male with them but we thought he might be out ahead of them scanning the waters. About 300 I got back (and into cell phone range). Grabbed a drink at flight deck from john and went to get my stuff back from will but decided that I would crash on his couch that night too. Then Carter, the boy I met the night before came down and met up with me after I tried on a fur-kini that was promised to me the night before... ya I didn’t end up getting it. It was cute for a furkini. Ha-ha. Carter then took me to my house so I could do a load of laundry and pack clothes for the next day. Then we went to canton house out by the Juneau mall. Ya-no where near the size of the MOA. I had a dinner complete with beef and pork lo mein and fried rice then we picked up his friend that lived by auke bay by Brent and headed to the hanger. They ended up having a party out in the valley with a mechanical bull they were excited to go see so they ended up taking off and I ventured the streets of downtown Juneau again. I ended up meeting up with john from flight deck and Abby was out too. Tonight I met this nice gentleman named matt at imperial. Gave him my phone number and then headed out to rendezvous where I ran into will. Will then brought me to the couch and I fell asleep rather quickly.