(ZZ Top, my brother from another mother)
We have been doing a very good job at avoiding the crowded cruise ship passenger areas of the island and staying local. We see countless white buses, taking anxious cruisers to their paid “adventure” and then return on the bus 4 hours later to their floating hotel. It might sound like I’m hating on them but I’m not all. I think life is too short not to explore your country or the world as far as that goes. It is great to broaden our horizons, and get out of our comfort zone. Okay, sorry, I’m stepping off the soap box.
Okay, we are going to be tourists today, so we looked at the cruise ship schedule (which I sweet talked the lady at the visitor center for) and found a day with the least amount of cruise ships in port and that was four, and three of those ships departing around 6 PM. That means up to 15000 people will be of the streets and heading to their next adventure.
So we decided to go downtown, take the tram up to Mount Roberts, go have a drink, and go to Tracy‘s. Why? Because Tracy‘s has legs!
The tram starts near the cruise ship dock. The five-minute ride takes us 1,800 feet halfway up the mountain for some spectacular views of Juneau and Gastineau Channel. Ann Marie kept her eyes closed as we ascended, but she was okay once we got to the top. WOW, the views where amazing!. One of the attractions at the top is Lady Baltimore. We had the pleasure of meeting lady Baltimore in 2017 when we visited here before. She is a bald eagle who was shot and was blinded in one eye and they had to reconstruct her beak. But she is living a good life showing off her talents and her beauty.
After we walked around and chatted to some folks, we hopped on the tram ride down the mountain to sea level. Again, with Ann Marie’s eyes closed.
We went to Tracy‘s for dinner. Tracy’s is right on the pier in the shadows of the cruise ships but is one of the things to do in Juneau, eat king crab legs! We order is by the pound, $85 per pound with an assortment of sides. If you order a bucket they ring a bell and make a big deal because they know you’re spending way too much money for the stuff. There was plenty of seating and we all sat outside. Let me tell you, the crab legs were delicious. That’s the first time that we’ve ever had king crab and it was everything we had heard about, won’t do it again but it was really good.
