All of this brings us to day 3. I woke up early and headed to the front of the ship to watch Alaska slip slowly by as we headed towards Juneau. We again had gray skies, but the sheer quiet beauty of the landscape made up for the clouds. It was so very quiet as mountains passed by. Heck, we even got really good a spotting whales. I tried to take some pictures but they didn’t probably do justice to what I saw on this morning. By 11, we were closing in on Juneau so we went to have a quick lunch in the dining room and when the captain gave permission to go ashore we were one of the first off. When we showed up at the rental car shed, we were the first to pick up our ultra-cool PT Cruiser. With 150,000 miles on it. The lady at the counter was super nice, though I found it really odd that I never had to show a driver’s license. It was almost as if, hey he has a credit card, we don’t care if he can legally drive, give him the car. Of we went towards the Mendenhall Glacier with a full tank of gas, no cigarettes, and also no clue how to get there as the map we got was poor. Trying to get a signal for our phone map was tough. Given the fact that the boss is an excellent navigator (and I’ve been researching maps for a year) we made it to the Glacier. At the Glacier, there are some areas that are fee access and others that are free. It was interesting to me that the fee places were not nearly as cool as the free ones. The four of us hiked the Nugget Falls Trail. An easy 2 mile round trip over a well-maintained and well-marked trail led us to the falls. We were there with about 5 other groups so we spent a good amount of time just taking it all in. We climbed rocks, we out our hands in the water, we skipped stones on a glacial lake-we hung out and it was cool. We took our time heading back and had actually planned on driving a bit more. But about that-the check engine light came on and since I didn’t especially feel like having a car with that many miles and a check engine light, I decided to take it on back. I dropped the girls in town and then I dropped the car and walked the mile back in to town. I had better luck with this car drop off than I did in San Francisco. We hit up the obligatory tourist shops and bought the obligatory tourist stuff. There were, however, two more experiences that were epic and awesome. In town, there is an old bar called the Red Dog Saloon. It’s been there a long while, before the tourists came, and it is an institution. Sawdust on the floors, crammed seating, and a great staff made this a perfect stop. The boss and I wanted a drink, so she had an Alaskan Brewing Co beer (Summer Ale I think) and I had lemonade with Tito’s and a Chambourd float. Did my drink look girly? Yes. Did it taste good? Yes, so let it go. The girls had draft root beer while we listened to the piano player sing songs that in no way whatsoever were child appropriate. Ethel looked completely overwhelmed and Lucy declared that she felt older in there. Whatever the case, it was fun and I recommended it highly. Another strong recommendation is for Tracy’s King Crab Shack. While it looks touristy (and probably is) the food was fabulou$$$. We had dungeness crab, crab bisque with jasmine rice, crab cakes (not for me), and a king crab leg. To say this food was great is an understatement. Steamed simply in water, the meat spoke for itself. We absolutely destroyed that poor crab, but we were not sorry in the least. As one final splurge, we opted last minute to head up the Mt. Robert’s Tram. For the 4 of us to do this it cost 115 bucks. The views were great and we were able to see a bald eagle up close (she had been shot and was unable to fly). Also, at the nature center, we learned about lots of the plants we had been seeing. The takeaway there is that in Alaska if you ain’t sure, don’t eat it. We headed down the mountain and walked back to the ship. Certainly more tired than we arrived but infinitely more alive. We compared our day with my parents (they had fun too) and we called it a night.