Crossing off our "TO DO" list

So we've made a to do list of all the things we want to do before we leave (which isn't very long because we've done so many awesome things in Juneau this summer!). But there are things around Juneau, many less adventurous things that are just neat to see that are on our list. For example, Saturday night we headed out to the Shrine of St Therese. Let me remind you this is not Brett's idea of fun but he was a trooper and went along with me. The shrine is an old church that sits out on a little island in the channel. All the way around the outside of the island are rock statues with different Staints on them where people go to pray. They look like this: The church itself is all made of rock and is quite old ( I can't remember exactly when it was built but I want to say late 1800's). It's very pretty inside and out. We also went to another church that is called Chapel on the Lake that is gorgeous. It's a log cabin church that is right next to campus. It sits on Auke Lake and has a gorgeous view. Last night we headed out to the Mendenhall Glacier. The sockeye salmon are running up the Mendenhall River and the bears LOVE to hang out there. It's a favorite activity of the locals to go and watch the bears at night when all the tourists are gone. We were able to see 5 different bears. We saw a mama bear and her two cubs and 2 other bears. They are all black bears so they aren't huge but they can still be mean. The cubs were my favorite. They were running through the water and just adoreable to watch! It was getting dark so it was hard to get some good pictures because a flash doesn't go that far but I managed to get some good ones and Brett got some AWESOME footage on the video camera but we don't have the cords we need to download it to the computer so you'll all have to wait on that one. The Forest Service has built a really nice path that goes over the river and right next to the river in a few different spots. The path has a fence around it so people can view the bears and be safe. The bears spent most of their time less than about 25 yards away from where we were standing. It was awesome to be that close to them and not be scared. We did see one of the bears had a tag on its ear. They only tag the bears when they have either attacked someone or when they have displayed some sort of hazardous behavior. Let's just say we're enjoying our last couple weeks here and are going to miss Alaska, it's beauty and adventure, VERY much.