Disappointment followed by Discovery

Wake up call this morning was a 7:15 breakfast at the Feather Bed. We once again had a hot breakfast full of yummy food! We made it to the airport in plenty of time for our morning flight to Skagway. We were going to fly on Alaskan Seaplanes.

We were told that we were on a weather hold and no planes were leaving. The weather forecast was not looking good. After hanging around for about an hour, we made the decision to cancel. It was supremely disappointing. I feel your pain, Mel when you had to miss your dogsledding adventure. Bob and I had this excursion on the top of our lists. Me, because I wanted to fly the little plane, take the steam engine, see the spectacular views on the trestle bridges and go into the Yukon. Bob actually has a model engine from the White Pass railroad and wanted to ride on the real deal. So it was a big let down not to be able to go!

At least we got our money refunded for the plane and train ride since it was due to Mother Nature. We quickly rented one of the few remaining cars and decided to drive up the Glacier Highway. We actually ended up taking it to the end of the road. Did you know that you can only get to Juneau by plane or boat. Pretty funky as it is the capital of Alaska. Well planes and ferries were stranded for the day. Here are a few pictures we took along the highway.

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We went to St Therese's chapel along the way. Along with the chapel itself, it also had the Stations of the Cross along the outside and a special memorial in honor of those victims of abortion. Peaceful and beautiful there...

There was some beautiful foliage along the way.

Then we spent some time hiking a path through the rainforest that led back to Herbert Glacier. There was a nice path cut out but no actual map on the board outside the entrance. It had been torn down. That should have been our first clue. There were only a couple of cars in the small parking lot. That should have been our second clue. We walked back in for about 2.5 miles and didn't see but only a couple of people. We did come upon two sightings of the Herbert River. The glacier was actually 4.8 miles back in. No way we would have made it that far. Boo Hiss...we had to turn around without seeing the glacier.

Here are a few pictures of the Herbert River and also some foliage along the way. The large leaf plant pictured is the Devil's Club. You can see the prickers all over the stem and leaves, especially the underside of the leaf. Very painful and sure to cause an infection as it likes to bury itself under your skin. It was everywhere along this path.

And here are a couple of pictures of the glacier we should have seen if we had kept going and wanted to hike 10 miles, taken off Google...

So after making it back to the car we made it to the end of the road.

Then our time was about to change. We spotted some boats all around on the cove and knew they had spotted a whale. Although the pics aren't very clear. You can see a partial breach and a whale tail if you look closely. Look for the spray of water as they spout.

Then a little further up the road we spotted out of nowhere a mother bear and her two little Cubs crossing the road right in front of us. We weren't quick enough to catch the mother before she jumped the guardrail, but here are the shots Bob got of the Cubs.

Then lastly we stopped at Eagle's Lake and no, we did not see an eagle, but we did see all kinds of birds (mostly seagulls and crows) and fish that flipped a fin out of the water. They kind of looked like little sharks but I know they were not.

It was a pretty place to be. We finished up by coming back to the Grandma's Feather Bed Hotel. We plan to eat supper here tonight. Then the job of packing up again and getting ready to head north to Anchorage in the morning. Hopefully flights can take off in the big commercial side of the airlines and we will not have any more cancellations. I have to admit, I enjoyed seeing the whales and bears, but I still have a bit of disappointment left cause I really wanted to ride in that little plane and then go one the beautiful steam engine ride with the devastatingly beautiful views. Go here to see the video of the train ride we missed. http://wpyr.com/sights-sounds/videos/
Until tomorrow...