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Our ship sailed in the early evening Saturday and Sunday was spent at sea headed for Juneau. This was a National Review cruise so much of our time when we weren’t in port was taken up with NR activities. There was a reception Sunday evening and then dinner. While we ate in the main dining room the NR cruisers were grouped together. Each night we were assigned a different table so we met different people each evening. I gotta tell ya, Joyce and I enjoyed being around like-minded people (conservatives). Everyone enjoyed roundly cussing the libs. Naturally people talked about who they hoped would be the Republican nominee. Joyce and I are backing Ted Cruz and he was well-regarded in the conversations we had, as were Marco Rubio, Carly Fiorina and Scott Walker. Several dinners included one of the NR writers. We drew Pat Cadell (not an NR writer but a recognizable figure), James Lielaks, Ramesh Panuru and Jillian Milchoir. At one of the receptions I introduced myself to Kevin D. Williamson. I admire his writing and had read that he was born in Amarillo and grew up in Lubbock. We had a brief but pleasant chat. Nice fellow.
We signed up for an excursion in Juneau, The Grand Tour they called it. The first stop on The Grand Tour was the Mendenhal glacier. We walked to within a quarter of a mile of it, which was good exercise, but not much more. I don’t get the attraction glaciers seem to have for some people. Later in the week we visited another glacier in Glacier National Park. The ship sailed up Glacier Bay, which is a long, narrow fjord-like body of water and parked next to a glacier. People lined the railing to ogle the glacier and shouted, groaned and squeaked when it calved off a hunk. Then the ship turned around and sailed back down the bay and on up the coast. I think the brochure beat the real thing.
For my money, the best part of the Grand Tour was the little private garden pictured above. The couple who own it moved to Alaska in the 70’s, I think. They’ve built a nice trail that winds through the rain forest for a couple of hundred yards and put signs up to identify the various plants. After we strolled through they served us a flavored tea and cookies. Then it was back on the bus and back up to the road to the Mt. Roberts Tram. Juneau consists mainly of one road that is called by different names a various places on its 60-mile length. The locals just call it “the road.” You can’t drive to Juneau. It’s either fly, sail or walk to get there. “The road” just ends on either end but because it is part of the town Juneau lays claim to being the largest city in the world. Sitka makes the same claim because the little village on an island 130 miles long and 30 miles wide incorporates the entire island.
Joyce and I could have done without the tram ride. It was okay going up but we got there late in the afternoon when a lot of people who had gone up earlier were wanting to go back down. We were told to visit the gift shop and other attractions because the crowd would clear out in a little while. It didn’t and we had dinner reservations so we got in line and shuffled along for an hour or so before we finally got on the tram. I know I’ve met bigger liars than Alaskans but I can’t remember when.
