Tourists for a few day

Yesterday I had the priviledge to be able to join Brett at work and don't you worry - I GOT VIDEO! Unfortunately, the video is too big to fit on the blog so it will have to wait until we get home BUT if I get it broken down I will be sure to get it on here. It's great! We took the "deluxe tour" of Juneau. It was such a fun day and I really enjoyed seeing Brett with the tourists and watching him work. We started at Glacier Gardens. This is a beautiful rainforest garden that a man and wife created. The man was doing some excavating and accidently slammed a tree upside down into the ground. He thought it was kinda cool so he left it and planted flowers, hanging flowers in the roots. (Picture to the left is of an upside down tree) He was so impressed with his "mistake" that he created lots of these upside down trees. These trees along with the natural beauty of the rainforest is a main attraction for the tourists in Juneau. Unfortunately, the giant golf cart that we were on broke down when we were 5 minutes into the 1 hour long tour. It was a mess! They asked us to go to the glacier and then come back, in hopes that the golf cart would be fixed. No luck. So they were asked to just take a walking tour of the lower levels of the gardens. Some of the tourists were very upset but Brett was the hero and acted swiftly to help appease them anyway that he could. He was a champ. We also visited the Mendenhall Glacier. We've been there many times, but I have never been in the vistor's center so we took a trip inside. It has lots of neat displays about glaciers and I learned that it's the most visited glacier in the world - SWEET! Our last stop was the Macaulay Salmon Fish Hatchery - home of the longest fish ladder in Alaska. This is home to about 2 million salmon every year. The salmon make their way back home to spawn. The fish jump the ladder, when they make it to the top they are "shocked" (this is what they tell the tourist but really it just kills them because that's what happens when they are done spawning anyway) they take out the eggs and once the eggs are hatched they are "imprinted" by chemicals in the water. It makes the water smell a certain way so that the fish know where home is when it is time to spawn. I have never seen so many fish in my life. It was so cool to see that many fish.

Today we decided to see a few things that we've been wanting to see but haven't had a chance yet. We visited the St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church here in Jueanu (it has got both of us in the Christmas mood, and we have had the song 'Jolly ol' St. Nicolas' in our heads all day). Alaska used to be home to many Russians and this church was brought here when they were here. It was actually built in 1894 in Siberia and then disassembled and shipped to Alaska. It is also in the book called "A Guidebook to the 500 Most Notable Buildings in the United States". Who would've thought?!? We took a tour of the state capitol building. The granite inside was very pretty and all from right here in Southeast Alaska. They are in "special session" right now discussing the pipe line but they were on break from lunch so we were able to see the House and Senate Rooms - very cool. Our last stop of the day was the Alaska State Museum. We spent about 2 1/2 hours in here looking at how the native people of Alaska lived and the early years of Alaska. It was very fun to spend the day together and become even more appreciative of the great land that we are living in right now. We finally got a few things crossed off our "To Do" list today and will hopefully get everything crossed off our list before we have to leave this gorgeous place! Check out more pictures from our Day as Tourists here.