Juneau

Our first real stop on the cruise was Juneau.  We did some research ahead of time and figured that the one "not to miss" thing in Juneau was Mendenhall Glacier.  It's about 7-8 miles north of town, so we bought shuttle tickets and headed out.  We were able to get a lot closer than the glacier in Tracy Arm, so it was an awesome experience!

 There was a beaver dam right by the viewing platform with some ripples in the water just upstream of the dam.  I like to think the ripples were beavers, which I'll always think of fondly thanks to CS Lewis ("Safe? Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you." — Mr. Beaver)

Here's the glacier, which has actually receded quite a bit in recent years.  Still magnificent.  You can walk on it if you're willing to fork over the money for a helicopter ride to the top.  That would have been cool, but pricey...

 Maggie and her Mimi at the glacier.

 There was also a waterfall just to the right of the glacier (Nugget Falls) which Mariah and I hiked over to while someone else watched our kids (Eric was still on crutches at this point of the trip).

 Back in Juneau town, a view of our boat.

 And from one of the upper decks of the ship, looking out onto Juneau harbor.  There were 5 ships in port that day, and float planes (probably carrying cruise shippers to the glaciers and such) landing every few minutes.