Day 3 of our cruise began with something I had never experienced before...ROOM SERVICE!!! OH YAY! It was fun! Well...ok...honestly it wasn't that exciting because the food was kind of blah and eating it I was a little rushed as we had to be off the ship soon. But it was fun to try it for once!

Once we had eaten and the five of us were off of the ship I was finally able to snap a picture of this sign, which I kept seeing in all the ports and thought was hilarious!


So we arrived in Juneau and were headed to our excursion of Salmon Hatcheries and the Mendenhall Glacier. This is a photo of us as we were waiting for our bus to arrive. We had the best bus driving...but more about that in a minute.
The following video is of the Salmon Hatchery. It was my most favorite of all our excursions. I had not really expected much from it and it turned out to be very fascinating. One thing I did not say in the video was that if you buy salmon you should look for salmon that says either Alaska Salmon or Wild Salmon on the packaging. The reason for this is that it is illegal to do Fish Farming in Alaska, so you know for a fact that if it comes from Alaska it has not been farmed. Fish farming is bad because they raise the fish in little nets and the fish aren't in a natural habitat. This causes the fish to get sick so they inject them with antibiotics (steroids too???). So Alaska Salmon is not only more humane it is going to be free of any man made junk.



Inside the building of the Salmon Hatchery there were many crazy creatures to look at. These were some of the coolest aquariums I have ever seen!!!

These particular creatures they had in little tubs so you could feel them. They don't always have them in these little cages.


You might not be able to tell from this picture but this starfish has many legs. You can see younger newer legs growing like nubs in between the older longer legs. I had never seen this before. These thigns looked like octopi. They were pretty crazy!!!

From there we went to the Mendenhall Glacier. I preferred the Hubbard Glacier but this one had some unique features. It was kind of eerie looking though!


They had some trails outside of the Mendenhall Glacier building. Some of them were closed off due to bear activity. This is a nice little sign that was right outside of the building. Can someone please explain the significance of the date, other than the fact that it was a day old?


Our bus driver was an adorable young girl (ok, not that young). She had a very dry sense of humor and we all really liked her. She was young but her driving was very good. Towards the end of the trip we were sitting at a stoplight and the bus engine stopped. She started saying, "oh my goodness, I'm so embarrassed!" None of us knew why until she said, "I was trying to turn off the windshield wipers and turned off the bus instead!" We all laughed and nearly 2 minutes later she finally had the bus started again and we were off!


Back on the ship we had to get ready for dinner. Prior to that though we tried to take a picture using the auto shoot mode on my camera. I cannot upload all the pictures to tell this story properly without getting into trouble with my family so I must apologize for the lack of visuals. The first picture I didn't think to use the autoshoot so we decided to retake it. Then my mom felt that she was too fat looking so we reshot it. The third picture I messed up and wasn't in it, the fifth picture my mom and aunt both said they looked too fat so finally I realized no one would be happy unless they were covered, so....

This was the night that Alissa was wearing her strawberry pajamas. The reason this is important was because this was the night we met our head waiter (our waiter's boss). From this night forward he would always come looking for his "little strawberry." He was very sweet and loved Alissa. Of course, everyone on the boat did. Especially at dinner, we had a late dinner so I don't think they were expecting children and everyone there would always ask about her if she wasn't there. The waiters would always bring her milk and food and ask if she wanted anything. They would all try to talk with her but she's a little shy of strangers. It was cute.

I HAD to put this picture in. I'm not sure what was in her mouth but boy I don't want any!

This is our waiter. He was very nice, somewhat shy. He didn't do that many tricks or anything for us but I still really liked him. He was always very good and pleasant and would laugh and get embarassed pretty easily.


Of the trick he did, this was one of them. This was to show us how the ship's stabilizers worked. Though, I'm still not clear on the stabilizers, this was amazing. Yes those were normal sized toothpicks. That was a pretty amazing balancing act!!!

Ok, to end this day I had to put this picture in. They both look so adorable! Mom and daughter!