Glacier & Whales

 I watched some cruise ships come in, while I had my coffee and worked on my blog.

After a leisurely breakfast we drove up to the Mendenhall Glacier

Waterfall near the glacier

The trail was well maintained and fairly flat. This is one of the places that the many people from the cruise ships will come to, so they have to maintain it.

Ice chunk which had broken off

Devil's Club

More ice chunks

We had a fun time. 

We drove home and had sandwiches for lunch.  

A variety of "greens" to add to our sandwiches

Timi's work room

The back of the house

Looking at the cruise ships

We relaxed for a while.  Our whale watching tour was not until 2:30 pm.  As it got closer to the time of the tour it started looking more like it might rain.

We got on the bus at 2:30 pm.  They used 2 buses. Our bus driver pointed out the local sights on our way. 

Lots of bald eagles (Alaska's pigeons)

Once we were on our way Owen gave us a running commentary about the whales.

Humpback whale's "tooth". The whale takes a huge gulp of water filled with herring.  The "teeth" help to hold the herring back while the whale spits out the water.  They use their tongues to clear off the "teeth".  Then they swallow.  We learned a lot about humpbacks.  That is the commonest whale around Juneau.

Rain was coming in

The whales are known by the shape and design of their tails.  They are given names and are tracked.  

The first spot there seemed to be just this one whale, Kelp.  So we moved to another spot. There were quite a few whales there.  It sure was hard to take pictures.  The rain didn't help.

Some whale tails

Synchronized swimming

We saw 6 breaching whales.  I actually only saw 2 of them.  One was very close to our boat but I was behind a bunch of people so I missed it.  

3 whales that look like the Loch Ness monster. ;-)

So many pictures.  I really should have gotten a picture of all of us on the boat watching.  I am glad that I brought several layers.  And my jacket worked.  We had intermittent showers.

Sea Lions on the buoy.

Lighthouse in the background.

Coming back in to dock.  There are some fancy boats.

Our fabulous crew.

Our tour company, Juneau Whale Watch (www.juneauwhalewatch.com)

More eagles.

Our bus back into town.

When we got off we walked straight to dinner.  We had a reservation at the only Indian food restaurant in Juneau.  Erik had recommended it.  

Spice Juneau

Close up of the lights.

Aloo Tikki - crispy potato cutlet with a cilantro dip.  There were 4 of them, but I was slow with the picture taking.

Naan and raita.  Very unusual naan.  It was more like a crispy garlic flatbread.

Sabji or vegetable korma with paneer.  This was very tasty.

Aloo Gobi.

And we got rice.  We brought home left-overs.  Maybe Erik and Timi will like them.

When we got home I started the big job of deleting pictures.  I got a lot of terrible shots.  

This was my favorite photo of the whales.

My favorite glacier photo.