Juneau in the damp and rain

We arrived in Juneau, the Capital City of Alaska, at about 0800 and tied up close to a Crystal Cruise lines ship  and also somebody’s very expensive private motor yacht. Jennifer did some clothes washing whilst we passed the morning away and after an early lunch headed off the ship in to town.
Juneau has been the Capital City since 1906 when the Government was moved from Sitka  as dictated by the US Congress in 1900, nothing like rushing it. However with such planning they realised that there are no roads connecting the town to any other place in Alaska due to the high mountains, perhaps they should let the Chinese shown them how to do it, and the only way in or out is by ferry or airplane and there is even a car ferry so that cars can be brought in as required but it is most expensive because of this. So all foodstuffs, petrol etc is all brought in by ship , a bit like the Falkland Islands.

Anyway we had tickets for the St Roberts Tramway ( why they call it a Tramway beats me as its clearly a cable car) which we got on straight away with a guy droning on and on about the Tramway and why it was there. We got to the top safely and then walked around all the tourist stuff and waited for the twenty minute film about the Indians who had occupied this land for many years and how they have had to adapt to a more modern life. Prior to the film starting we had to practise saying a few words in ‘Tlingit’ eg
I gu.aa.yax x’wan    which means Thank you. Yak’ei   which means good, which reminded me of Yaki da greeting.
The film was well done and explained how the tribes had two clans, one called the Ravens and the other called the Eagles. Ravens could marry an Eagle but not another Raven and this was done to keep the tribes close and friendly. After the film we walked around the top part of Mount Roberts and the rain had started briefly and then we headed back to the bottom using the cable car. With two ships in town with perhaps 1500 extra people we thought the cable car would be busy but we wuz wrong as there were no queues at either end.
This was a a gold town and today the streets are lined with jewellery and T-Shirt shops with end of season sale signs everywhere but hardly anybody buying anything We returned to the ship around 16.00 and went for the necessary cuppa and a little reading. Tonight we were again in the main restaurant which was hardly buy even at 8pm so assume people were elsewhere and that has been the beauty of this ship, the restaurants are never crowded and noisy, there lounges are always quiet. Following dinner we went to the CLUB and listened to the band for a while before heading back for a good nights sleep.
Tomorrow we visit two bays where you can go out on the ships Zodiacs, at a price’ and get up close to Wales, oops I meant Whales and other sea animals.
I am writing this in the observatory in the beautiful sunny weather as we head in to Inian bay