Juneau

So yesterday we spent a good amount of time admiring Hubbard Glacier. It was so neat and we saw more calving that we did at Glacier Bay. The weather was perfect starting around lunch time. There were people on deck in shorts. We definitely didn't need to wear our big winter coats like we did at the other glacier. I got some great pictures. While we were on our balcony, we saw some seals in the water. They looked so small because the ship is so big. I'm sure the seals were bigger than they really appeared. Yesterday around 4pm we went to bingo. We should have won the game. On the jackpot bingo mom was set for B13 on two different cards. For you non bingo players, that means she needed only one number and that number that she needed was B13. We didn't win :( We also went to some sort of Juneau shopping port seminar. They usually give away free things at the seminars. This time they were giving away free things from Del Sol. For those of you who aren't aware, Del Sol sells things that change color in the sun. It's overpriced and not worth it, but its neat for kids. So the first thing he handed out was a canvas tote bag. Then he handed out a stuffed bear, and guess who he decided to give that to? Yep, me….i'm sure he thought I was about 15 and I would just love a bear. Well, newsflash, I'm not 15 and I don't want the bear, haha! Whatever will I do with the bear? I don't need a stuffed bear that changes in the sunlight. Anyways, we last night after bingo, we decided to change into our casual attire for dinner and go take pictures. I told mom this is the last time besides port that I would make her take picture. We saw them tonight and they were pretty good….we both had on our pink :) So after dinner last night, we went to the spa and then went to "name that tune." Name that tune wasn't easy for me or mom. You had to name the artist. I DO NOT know artist names. I knew song titles for the majority of the songs but did not know the artist. So, our solution was to make up the artist. We (I) started making up names for the songs. Thought I'd make the game a little more fun. I was always taught in school to never leave an answer blank, always make a guess. However, when it was time to switch papers with another team, we kept our own paper :) After that we came back to the room for the evening. I wasn't feeling too good and didn't really think I would be of much use around the ship.

This morning we pulled in to Juneau around 7am. We woke up shortly after. We got ready and had our breakfast down in the upstairs dining room. Let me back up a little and say that at this point, my throat was hurting pretty bad. Mom said maybe I should go to the doctor on the ship, but I was afraid that they might try to quarantine me because I might be contagious. So I didn't go. When we got off the ship, we were too early for our excursion, so we walked down the street to find some medicine for my throat. Nothing else was hurting besides my throat…..no coughing, no runny nose, no fever. But I did have blister looking things in the back of my throat. Thank you daddy for making sure I was prepared with a flashlight. It looks painful in the back of my throat, no wonder if hurts. Anyways, we found a drugstore but they didn't have what I was looking for. I got some Cepacol lozenges and they help, but not as much as I would like. So after the drugstore visit and a pit stop at McDonalds, we went back to the ship to drop off our coats. We thought we might need them, but we didn't end up needing them. At that time, it was almost time for our excursion. So we went to check in. For them to check us in, we had to show them our tour ticket, and then they wrote our weight on the ticket with blue sharpie. The reason you might wonder…..well we were going on a float plane right. I guess the planes can only hold so much weight. Some people made the joke, "do you want our weight BEFORE the cruise or AFTER the cruise?" Haha!!! That was my question. So we went on a short, like 3 minutes short, ride down to the dock. They divided us into groups and we go on our planes. There were as many as 10 on each plane. Two planes only had six people. We loaded the plane and took off towards Taku Lodge. This is a lodge on the Taku River, I think. We flew over icebergs and saw some incredible views from way up in the air. At the lodge, we met the other planes and enjoyed our fresh salmon bake. There were tons of mosquitoes at the Lodge. There was also a BIG BLACK BEAR named Lois at the Lodge. Mom and I went to the gift shop for a short time and when we came back out, we saw people walking to the back of the lodge so we thought that they were serving the food back there but they were all looking at Lois who had climbed up into the tree back there. They told us that she would come down once everyone went inside. Apparently every time they have a salmon bake at the logde, Lois comes and cleans the outside grill afterwards. Sure enough, we all were inside waiting to eat and we looked over and saw Lois on the grill cleaning it off. It sure was a sight to see. The food was delicious! We ate and had some time to walk around the lodge area. We just went back to the gift shop again, then we didn't have much time to walk around before our planes came back to get us. Sure enough, about 10 minutes later, we heard our planes coming back. Then we all headed back to get on them. We went back to the dock and walked through downtown. We went in a few gift shops, but didn't buy anything. It was raining a little and we were pretty much done so we went back to the ship. There were 3 other ships in port as well today. The Volendam was in port along with 2 Princess ships. They have this funicular in Juneau that would be kind of neat to ride but it was foggy so we weren't sure what kind of view we would have if we rode it. Anyways, when we went back to the ship, we just came back to the room, Mom talked on the phone and I took a nap. My throat was STILL hurting. We had decided that I would go ahead and go to the doctor. We have a sea day tomorrow and we are in victoria for half a day on Sunday, so if I was to get quarantined then it wouldn't be in a major port. Anyways, a little after 5pm (which is when the doctor was on duty) I went down to the medical center. I had to wait for at least 30 minutes to see the doctor. When he saw me, he said they couldn't do a strep test because they didn't have a rapid strep test, and basically all they could do was treat me and hope it would get better. So they gave me some amoxicillan that I'm supposed to take 4 times a day. Hopefully my throat will start feeling better ASAP! Nothing else hurts on me, just my throat. We ordered room service from the dining room for dinner. They said it would take 45 min- 1 hour. It took about 15 minutes. It was really really good! We ate our dessert first because we ordered ice-cream. We didn't want it to melt. I have a friend who does that at chickfila. She orders ice-cream and eats her ice-cream first :) Now we are just finishing the movie "It's Complicated." It was the movie that was on last night and mom wanted to go see it, but I wasn't feeling up to it. We knew it would come on tonight, so we just figured we'd watch it tonight. We are just hanging, I'm drinking hot tea and we are taking it easy. I'm thankful the doctor didn't make me put a big red X on the door that said I had to stay in my room and couldn't come out.

Tomorrow should be relaxing, it's a sea day and the Master Chef's Dinner. I'm looking forward to another relaxing day tomorrow at sea as the cruise is coming to an end quicker than I would like it to.