Trip Notes - Juneau
Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 12:14 pm
Arrived in Juneau on a sunny, warm day. It would get up to 75 degrees. The locals said there had not been a day like this since June- although they added it had been an unusually cloudy summer. In Juneau, breaks in clouds are called “blue clouds,” or, more pointedly, “sucker holes,” as in, “You’re a sucker if you think it’s going to clear up.”
Juneau is not as touristy as Ketchikan, owing, I suppose, to it’s being the state capital. There are t-shirt and jewelry emporiums, but they’re not the first thing you see; they’re about the third. About 68% of the people who live in Juneau have white collar jobs, mostly with the state, city or feds.
There is always talk about moving the capital to some more accessible city. Juneau, as Im’s ure you’re aware, is on an island and there is no bridge off. Boat or plane, or you’re not seeing Juneau. Some years back, a measure passed the state legislature to move the capital to Willow, a town north of Anchorage. It died for a number of reasons, including cost ($3 billion), but it also turned out that the sponsors of the measure owned most of the land in Willow that would have been developed. I love local politics.
The good weather is particularly good for us. We have booked a 9-mile bike ride over paved road with little grade that will take us to Mendenhall Glacier, just outside of town. On the van ride to our staging area, our guide (a high school kid) gives us a kid’s eye view of Juneau. We drive by the capitol, which at first look appears to be an oversize bank on a side street. Not far is the governor’s mansion- although “mansion” is kind of pushing it. It’s white, it has columns, but it’s just a larger-than average house on a street with other houses that are neither white nor columned, and are average size. The guide mentions that the governor was named “hottest governor” in the US by Vogue. This was about a week before she became famous for other reasons. It occurred to me as I recalled the visages and physiques of other governors I knew that the competition wasn’t particularly tough.
The bike ride was great. We began by going through the local campus of the University of Alaska, and stopped at a log chapel the back wall of which (behind the pulpit) was glass, with a spectacular view of the lake, glacier and mountains. Any preacher competing with the scenery would be at a marked disadvantage.
We rode on a road which took us by houses and housing developments. One had a street named “Arctic Circle.”
The final stop at the glacier was breath-taking. We then collected ourselves for the second part of the tour: the vans took us to the headquarters of the Alaskan Brewery Company, makers of many fine beers which we sampled for free.
We ate at a recommended burger joint, Hangar on the Wharf. Odd name, but it’s a place with an airplane motif with a view of the river, where floatplanes land and take off all day.
Our evening event was whale watching. The tour company guaranteed we’d see whales, or they’d take $100 off our tickets. We saw about a dozen. Oh my.
Juneau is not as touristy as Ketchikan, owing, I suppose, to it’s being the state capital. There are t-shirt and jewelry emporiums, but they’re not the first thing you see; they’re about the third. About 68% of the people who live in Juneau have white collar jobs, mostly with the state, city or feds.
There is always talk about moving the capital to some more accessible city. Juneau, as Im’s ure you’re aware, is on an island and there is no bridge off. Boat or plane, or you’re not seeing Juneau. Some years back, a measure passed the state legislature to move the capital to Willow, a town north of Anchorage. It died for a number of reasons, including cost ($3 billion), but it also turned out that the sponsors of the measure owned most of the land in Willow that would have been developed. I love local politics.
The good weather is particularly good for us. We have booked a 9-mile bike ride over paved road with little grade that will take us to Mendenhall Glacier, just outside of town. On the van ride to our staging area, our guide (a high school kid) gives us a kid’s eye view of Juneau. We drive by the capitol, which at first look appears to be an oversize bank on a side street. Not far is the governor’s mansion- although “mansion” is kind of pushing it. It’s white, it has columns, but it’s just a larger-than average house on a street with other houses that are neither white nor columned, and are average size. The guide mentions that the governor was named “hottest governor” in the US by Vogue. This was about a week before she became famous for other reasons. It occurred to me as I recalled the visages and physiques of other governors I knew that the competition wasn’t particularly tough.
The bike ride was great. We began by going through the local campus of the University of Alaska, and stopped at a log chapel the back wall of which (behind the pulpit) was glass, with a spectacular view of the lake, glacier and mountains. Any preacher competing with the scenery would be at a marked disadvantage.
We rode on a road which took us by houses and housing developments. One had a street named “Arctic Circle.”
The final stop at the glacier was breath-taking. We then collected ourselves for the second part of the tour: the vans took us to the headquarters of the Alaskan Brewery Company, makers of many fine beers which we sampled for free.
We ate at a recommended burger joint, Hangar on the Wharf. Odd name, but it’s a place with an airplane motif with a view of the river, where floatplanes land and take off all day.
Our evening event was whale watching. The tour company guaranteed we’d see whales, or they’d take $100 off our tickets. We saw about a dozen. Oh my.
