Back around Thanksgiving I received a letter from Google AdWords with an invitation to try the service. The incentive was $100 worth of credits. I’ve never used this service before, but with such a nice offer I decided to try it out. As I worked through the sign up process I found that I had to fork over a $10 sign up fee, but it seems I remember that they gave me another $5 worth of credits so I basically got $105 worth of credits for $10.

You probably don’t know a lot about AdWords so I’ll share my limited understanding of the program. Often when you visit a web site you’ll note a section of the page called “Ads by Google.” These are paid ads placed there for hopefully related websites. The owner of the site earns a small payment for every ad that is clicked on (or something like that).

Anyway, I designed a four line text ad, entered a bunch of keywords that describe my devotional writing, set a budget of no more than $7.50 a day, and watched to see what would happen.

At first, not much. My ad appeared on a few pages and I had a few site visitors but there were no fireworks. Then, about two weeks in, for some reason I don’t understand, things took off. My ad was appearing on pages that mentioned “devotionals” and the like and people began visiting my site. Ultimately, my ad appeared over 370,000 times and it generated over 550 visits to my site. Since the campaign started I’ve gained around 20 email subscribers to my devotionals.

Frankly, I’m impressed. I never expected that kind of response. Now, it may be that some of the new folks will loose interest and unsubscribe, although most of my subscribers have stayed with me for two or more years.

Will I put my own money up and do another campaign? I don’t think so. My writing is mainly for my own use and I don’t make a dime off of it. However, if I had an Internet business I think I’d consider it. After all, if you’re trying to make money on the Internet, traffic is the name of the game.

Also, I’ll mention that if Google AdWords wants to give me another $100 I’ll happily do another ad campaign! (hint)

I’m a long time, dedicated user of the Firefox web browser.  I like the ability to use Add-ons that let me customize the web browser to my tastes.  Lately, though, I’ve been managing a website that is javascript heavy and Firefox seems to get bogged down in it all.  I’ve played with Chrome before, but without certain key extensions it just wasn’t worth the trouble.  When Google released Chrome with extension capability I decided to give it another whirl.

I do think it handles the website I mentioned better, and there are plenty of new extensions that can be used to customize the Chrome experience.

However, I miss some Firefox features.  For instance, other websites I work with need FTP treatment.  FireFTP is wonderfully handy for that.  Chrome, as of this writing has nothing in the same league.  Chrome will let me “pin” a tab, but Firefox’s Tab Mix Plus will let me “freeze” it.  I use that add-on all the time.  There’s another add-on that offers me Split Panes - something I don’t use often, but when I need it I really need it.

Anyway, I have Chrome all set up with Xmarks and LastPass so moving back and forth between Firefox and Chrome is fairly painless.  For the time being, I’m back “home” on Firefox, but using Chrome when I have some serious work to do on the above mentioned javascript heavy website I manage.

I had a minor disaster this morning.  I was disappointed to find that I’d accidentally dumped 28 devotionals I’ve written from the Book of Matthew.  I haven’t published any of my NT work, so I lost a month’s work.  Needless to say, it was a real downer to me.

That caused me to look into some kind of automatic back up solution.  I already use Window’s Live File Sync to keep oft used documents (as well as my Google Picasa files my laptop and desktop in sync - I wrote about it here).  In this case, the File Sync scheme was my undoing!  When I accidentally overwrote my devotionals from Matthew with my new project from the Book of Mark File Sync dutifully overwrote it on the other computer too!

Anyway, I decided I needed some kind of backup approach to these files.  I wanted it to happen automatically, I wanted it to be easy to set up, I wanted it to keep incremental backups, and I wanted it to (ah-hem) be FREE.  Off I went to trusty LifeHacker for a solution.  A combination of two recommendations from that website provide, I think, a nifty solution.

First, I downloaded, installed, and created an account with Dropbox.  It creates a new folder in My Documents.  Anything put in that folder is automatically backed up to their secure server.  Up to 2 Gigs is free - that’s more than enough for my text only back up needs.

Second, I didn’t want mess up my folder system by moving folders or files to the new Dropbox folder.  Again, LifeHacker had a nice solution.  It’s a free Windows add on called Link Shell Extension.  I downloaded and installed it.

Now, I was ready to set up the backup scheme.  I went to My Documents and right clicked on my Devotionals folder.  A new item on the menu is now “pick link source.”  I clicked on it (nothing happened, nothing’s supposed to!).  I then went to the new Dropbox folder.  After aiming the mouse pointer at some white space, I right clicked again.  This time, there was a new item named “Drop As…“.  I picked it and then clicked on “Hardlink Clone.” Sorry to say this doesn’t work as I first thought.  When the original files are updated, the Clone doesn’t reflect the update so Droplink doesn’t know to update it.

A visit to the Droplink website confirmed that they now have a copy of that entire folder.

Hopefully, this is the last time I’ll ruin my morning by discovering that I’ve overwritten my work!

PS: If you use this link to sign up for DropBox they’ll give me even more free storage.

A friend of ours has started a blog that you may appreciate.  Her spiritual journey speaks to my heart and I think it will speak to yours as well.

We are being renewed day by day

Since I publish a daily devotional my pages show up in searches people do who are looking for information on how to write a daily devotional.  In that case, they aren’t looking for a devotional to read.  Instead, they’re looking for help on writing their own devotionals.

So, here’s a tip: for me, a devotional has four parts.

1. The setup.  In it I tell a short version of the story that inspires the devotional.  This is often the larger portion of the article.  Here I give the background, leading up to the inspirational thought.

2. The crossover.  This is the most important line in the devotional.  At this point I’ve told the story, and I’m ready to apply it.  Usually, this is one sentence, but it’s what ties the first part to the third part.

3. The application.  Now I’m ready to describe how this passage applies to my life.  This is shorter than “the setup” and longer than “the crossover.”

4. The stinger.  This is a short, one liner that gives the reader something to think about.  It can be as simple as “how about you?”  However, it probably needs to be a bit more original than that.

That’s the basic outline for all my devotional writing.

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Many years ago, when I had my first computer, I ordered a Bible program called the Online Bible.  The funny thing is that it wasn’t “online” at all.  Of course, in the late 1980’s the term didn’t have anything to do with the Internet.  I ordered the program and a week or so later I received a box of 3.5″ diskettes.  I copied them onto my “massive” 20 megabyte (no, it’s not a typo) hard drive.  What a thrill it was to have the Bible on my computer.  My trusty Bible Concordance was placed on a forgotten corner of my book shelf and I could now do amazing searches of the Bible.  I know there are many good Bible programs out there today, but I’ve stayed with the Online Bible through the years.   I have it on my computer at home and also on my PDA. These days the Online Bible folks explain that the name doesn’t mean that their Bible is actually “online” although the program is actually, of course, available for download “online.”  However, some folks just go to the Biblegateway website and do their Bible searching online for real.   It’s interesting to me that the Online Bible started before anything was actually “online” but that now, there are several real “online” Bible websites that most folks just take for granted.  We’re on an interesting journey through technology even in our access to that old Book.

At church we use SongShow Plus and it does a good job for us.  I’d be glad to answer any questions about it if you care to ask.  Several years ago I started doing a PowerPoint presentation with the sermon.  I put the major points and scriptures up on the screen.  Also, we have a fill-in-the-blank sermon outline in the bulletin the “answers” appear on the screen as I preach the sermon.  Several faithfully fill in their outline each week.

I used to put my laptop on a stand by the pulpit so I could see what everyone else was seeing on the big screen behind me, but when we added a very large plasma screen to the back wall of the sanctuary so the praise team could sing without having to have music stands with the words, I decided to take advantage of the system for the sermon too.

SongShow Plus likes PowerPoint okay.  You can make a PPT an event in a program and then run it from within SSP.  You can also import a PPT presentation, converting it to the SSP format.

The main drawback using either method is that it doesn’t handle multi-part slides - if you want to have, say bullet points that appear one at a time you have to put each point on it’s own slide.  Also, because of that you can’t get any fly in effects, etc.

Still, it works pretty good.  I do my sermon in PPT and use a remote to change slides during the sermon.  That way I don’t have to depend on the folks in the media booth to know when to change the slides.  They just click on the PPT sermon, move the mouse to the “next” button on their screen and then stay hands off and let me run the sermon power point.

It works just fine.  One thing I like about adding the PPT to the sermon is that I’m not a great sermon illustrator.  I can find an image that illustrates my point and, as they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

I’ve got to share this one.  The children presented me with these two posters today.  The names of the candy bars are part of the message.

My response: “Isn’t that sweet!”

We’re absolutely humbled by all the nice things being done for us by the good people of our congregation during pastor appreciation month this year.  Apparently, folks have signed up to take a turn blessing us for practically every day of the month.  We’ve received nice cards, gift cards, and invitations to meals.  Last Sunday the song “Blest be the tie the binds” was inserted into the order of service.  The first verse was sung as usual, but the rest of the verses were about the Lord’s blessing our ministry.  It was sung in good humor, with laughter and it was fun and embarrassing at the same time for us.

Just to make things clear, we don’t deserve all this.  I’m just an average pastor who is thankful for the privilege of serving some wonderful people.  These days, I’m asking the Lord to help me, in some small measure, to live up to all the kindness I’ve been shown.

I’ve had my name in the paper before, but never quite like this.  The editor attends our church.

A friend of ours, I’ll call her “TB,” looked over my Miscellaneous writing and found that I have been rather inconsistent in my observations.  Following Hurricane Ike I waxed eloquent about our twelve days without electricity.  However, looking a bit farther back in my ramblings, she found my sanguine thoughts on camping unplugged and how peaceful it is.  What can I say?  Sitting beside a beautiful mountain stream with nothing more important to do than start the campfire for the evening is more fun than sitting in the garage hoping for a whisper of a breeze on a hot September Texas Gulf Coast day!

Still, I get the point.  A lot of things just depend on our perspective.

Cruising to Alaska on Rhapsody of the Seas - Pros
Scenery - awesome
Wildlife - good, but we didn’t see enough, probably should have sprung for a tour
Meals onboard - almost always good, sometimes excellent
Service onboard - friendly and capable
Music onboard - good and sometimes excellent
Ports - interesting and sometimes unforgettable
Change of itinerary - trading wind and rain in Skagway for beautiful Endicott Arm, worth it

Cruising to Alaska on Rhapsody of the Seas - Cons
Change of itinerary - it felt like we traded cruising the Inside Passage to being out of sight of land for gambling, yuck!
Coffee - made double strong all the time, almost made me a tea drinker
Cabin - I knew I was getting an inside cabin, but never dreamed I would have to crawl off and on the end of the bed
Sneaky fees - park the ship at the most distant pier and then wait in line and pay an extra fee for a shuttle to where we were supposed to be in the first place

You can see our photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastorscott.com

We spent our last vacation day exploring downtown Seattle.  Jackie especially wanted to visit the Seattle Central Library which is famous for its design and unique architecture.  We arrived just in time to join an architect led tour of the library. It was quite interesting and I recommend the tour to anyone.

We, and about every person in the Seattle metro area headed for Pike Place.  It was packed.  Still, we enjoyed checking out all the flower and fish and vegetable venders.  We also had lunch at a crowded and busy little fish and chips place.  After an hour or so at Pike Place we headed up the hill a ways, bought some coffee and sat down for a nice break.

All the downtown area is a free ride zone on the city bus system, so we hopped on and off at several places before boarding the monorail to City Center where we watched a street performer doing some nifty juggling.

We finished off the evening at the Cheesecake Factory.  Neither of us could eat all the food that we ordered.  From there it was back to the hotel for final packing in preparation for an early flight home.

You can see our photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastorscott.com

When we awoke on Friday morning the ship was docked in Seattle.  We had a leisurely breakfast because our time to disembark was 8:50.  As we ate, we could see people leaving the ship and heading for customs.  There was a quick, last visit to our room, a word of thanks to our stateroom attendant (we had prepaid our tips before departure), and a last visit to a couple of our favorite places on Rhapsody.  Our departure group was called a few minutes early and our walk through customs was mere formality in which we never even stopped walking.  Our luggage was waiting for us and we were soon at the Budget car rental desk.  I’d rented from a different office than the one that usually services pier 91, but the fellow at the desk called for me and within 20 minutes we were picked up and taken to the agency to pick up our car.

The rest of Friday was spent exploring north of Seattle, specifically Whidbey Island.  We took the ferry across to Clinton and then took our time driving and looking.  Highlights were lunch at Greenbank Farm, Fort Casey State Park with its lighthouse, and Deception Pass State Park.  Once we were off the island, we continued north a ways on Highway 11 and enjoyed the dramatic views along the way.

I had bid for and gotten a room at the downtown Sheridan for our final nights of vacation.  We arrived back in Seattle, found our hotel, and enjoyed a very good night’s sleep.
You can see our photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastorscott.com

We arrived in Victoria at mid morning and after waiting 45 minutes or so for the preferred guests to disembark, we non-preferred guests ventured out to see the city.  We got a few photos of “welcome to Canada” signs to prove that we actually made it to Canada after all these years.  There’s a $6.50 all day shuttle to downtown so we took it.  A person can walk, but it’s more than just a stroll.  We decided we’d save our legs walking around downtown.

Let me mention that there are two big attractions that everyone talks about when Victoria is mentioned.  First there are the Butchart Gardens and second there’s the Royal BC Museum.  Both of those are biggies that take time to really experience.  Since our ship’s final call was 5:30 and since we really just wanted to experience the city, we opted for a hop on/off bus tour.  I don’t know that we made the best choice, but that’s what we were in the mood for on our last cruise day.

Victoria is a beautiful city.  The residents take pride in Victory and it really shows.  Flowers are everywhere from the immaculate grounds of the Empress Hotel to the front porches of humble houses.   By taking the bus tour we saw several neighborhoods beyond the area around the busy harbor and downtown.

We hopped off at the city public library so Jackie could check out yet another library and I took advantage of the WIFI to upload photos and check email.  At one point the bus tour came to around 12 or 13 blocks of the ship, so we got off and walked back to Rhapsody so we could drop off the computer and everything else aside from our cameras.  After a quick lunch in the Windjammer, we took the shuttle back into the city, explored the manicured grounds of the Empress, and got back onto our on/off bus to continue our whirlwind tour of Victoria.

This is a city worth exploring and we’d like to return for a more casual visit some day.

One of the things I wondered about was why the ship was leaving so early with Seattle close by.  After all, one can take a fast ferry from Seattle to Victoria in around 45 minutes.  As Rhapsody pulled away from Victoria I realized what was happening.  We went, not toward Seattle, but back out to sea.  Before long, it was announced that the casino and duty free shops would soon be opening.  My guess is that we had just a short day in Victoria so the cruise line could make more money from the gamblers.

We ate a wonderful meal (Jackie had lobster) in the formal dining room and enjoyed the farewell from the food staff that came out for introductions and even a song.  Those in the dining room gave them a standing ovation for the food and service.

After dinner we took a stroll around the deck and then returned to our room to pack.  Some people had opted to do express disembarkment and just carry their luggage off the ship.  Everyone else was given luggage tags and instructed to keep just a carry off and put the tagged bags in the hallway before midnight.

We finished and called it a night around 10:30.  However, with the gambling and partying going on many came to their rooms considerably later.  It was the noisiest and least restful night of the cruise.

You can see our photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastorscott.com

Our Wednesday was spent at sea and the rocking and rolling continued.  However it was only mildly objectionable.  Again, my objection was that the itinerary showed us being in the inside passage for this part of the cruise.  When I booked the cruise one of the negatives for this particular cruise was that it went out to sea as it traveled north in the first days of the trip.  I decided I’d risk the possible sea sickness to get north as quickly as possible and then enjoy the inside passage the rest of the trip.  Instead, in addition to the journey north, it seemed we were out of sight of land at every opportunity.  Thankfully, Jackie and I weren’t suffering from sea sickness.  Still, though, the constant motion was somewhat disorienting and, instead of watching the beautiful green mountains and occasional wildlife, we had the rolling sea with whitecaps in all directions.

This was an interesting stage of the cruise, as people had pretty much figured out what is what on the ship.  Rather than exploring the ship, one could pick an area and go straight to it.   For instance, I settled on the 11th deck with its large, ceiling to floor slanted windows as my favorite hangout.  Sitting here I could see a great distance.   The ocean view highlight of the day for me was seeing two dolphin crest in perfect unity right next to the ship.

Jackie went to a couple of demonstrations: one on cake decorating and the other on towel folding.  I read and, in the afternoon took a nap.  I decided that I have a strange reaction to the Bonine motion sickness pills.  Prior to the trip I took one just to be sure I wouldn’t have some unexpected reaction.  Around twenty hours after I took it, I became quite drowsy.  Then on the cruise that same thing happened every time I took a Bonine.  Weird, right?

Since this was an at sea day and since the morning had lots of sunshine we joined about half the ship in walking laps around the deck.  We walked a mile in the morning and then, as fog rolled in and it began to cool we walked another mile in the afternoon.  Then the fog got so thick that one couldn’t see from one end of the ship to the other and from the upper decks the water wasn’t even visible.  That lasted a couple of hours.  By the time the fog lifted the seas had calmed and we finished the day with yet another mile around the deck.

You can see our photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastorscott.com

In spite of having trouble going to sleep, Jackie and I managed to sleep soundly into the morning.  If there’s any advantage to having an inside cabin (aside from price) it’s that it stays quite dark in the morning.  There’s no pesky sunlight disturbing sound sleep.  We awoke to the sound of the captain’s announcing that we would soon dock in Ketchikan and that the weather forecast called for very good, sunny weather.

Because of the schedule change, after months of thinking about and researching our cruise we ended up in Ketchikan without a clue as to what to do.  I’d seen tons of information on the area but ignored it because we were going to Skagway instead.  The downtown looks a lot like Juneau with tons of nice shops intended to draw the cruise ship passengers.  The harbor is also very picturesque.  Since we were clueless as to what we might like to do in Ketchikan we went to the welcome center and picked up a walking map of the city.  From there we, and a thousand or so fellow cruisers, set off on a personal tour of the town.  Included in the tour was the city library which made Jackie quite happy.  Then, we set off following a beautiful mountain stream that was filled with salmon.  At one point there’s section of rushing, falling water.  I managed to get a photo of some of the salmon leaping out of the water to swim up stream.

Just a bit farther on is a fish hatchery operated by Native Americans.  We paid $13 each to tour the facility and to visit the totem museum just across the stream.   The tour was sort of interesting as we saw tanks of the small salmon at various stages of development.  At one point we saw workers killing and filleting fish for food.  One fellow was in the water where the returning salmon were being corralled.  Using a big net he scooped up several of the 3 foot and longer fish.  He culled out some and the rest he hit with a club so the fish could be passed on for processing.  I had to smile when I thought of some suburban momma with her suburban kids finding out the hard facts of how food ends up on the table.   The totem museum was interesting and had lots of information about the history of the totems as well as some samples well over 100 years old.

Continuing the tour, we passed a small grocery store and bought a few desired items, including some powdered coffee creamer that I like better than the little liquid creamers on the ship.  Frankly, I was disappointed in the ship’s coffee.  It’s was way too strong for me.  In fact, I heard someone else say the same thing.  By doubling up on the creamer I managed to tame the coffee down to where it was almost drinkable!

Then, we found an internet café and I used my laptop to get on the internet.   I mostly wanted to upload photos of our trip for family and friends.  I also checked out my email.

After a return to the ship to drop off the laptop and to have lunch, we returned to the nearby shops.  I sat and people watched while Jackie did some shopping.  It wasn’t long though, before we were ready to return to Rhapsody for a couple of hours of downtime before departure.  I took a short nap and Jackie read.  Then, as the ship departed Ketchikan, I processed the photos from the day.

For supper we ate in the main dining room and I enjoyed one of the finest meals I’ve ever eaten.  A shrimp cocktail, followed by New York strip steak with portabella mushroom and some wonderful shrimp, topped off by a very good banana-almond-cream dessert.    I don’t make a big deal out of food, but this meal was absolutely terrific.

By the time we finished the meal the ship was beginning to do its rock and roll thing again.  I could only hope it was temporary and not an indication of what to expect from Wednesday’s day at sea as we made our way to Victoria, B.C.

You can see our photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastorscott.com

We woke early Monday morning and I was surprised at how distant land was on either side of the ship.  It was raining and the wind was blowing, creating whitecaps on the water around us.  Jackie and I went forward for breakfast.  I usually have a very good sense of direction and I felt the ship was going west rather than northeast as it should be in making its way to Skagway.  Of course, cruising, of all activities, seems especially designed to confuse one’s sense of direction.  After all, one day, when walking some interior hallway forward one is walking, say, east.  Then, you go to bed, wake up the next morning and walk in the same direction, but you are now going south.  Again, it’s easy to get turned around.

Still, as we ate breakfast, I remarked that I wouldn’t be surprised if we were diverting from Skagway.  The widening waterway and the “feeling” that we were going in the wrong direction was soon confirmed as it was announced that when Rhapsody arrived at Skagway at 4:00 a.m. that the whole area had rain and 50 mph winds.  The captain had gotten permission to divert us to a day of cruising Endicott Arm down to Dawes Glacier and then going to a yet to be announced port the next day.

I was pretty disappointed that we weren’t going to Skagway because we had a car rented and planned a drive up the Klondike Highway into the Yukon for the day.  However, doing that in weather conditions such as those wouldn’t be much fun anyway so we decided to go with the flow and look forward to our unexpected visit to Endicott Arm.  This also meant we wouldn’t visit Tracy Arm as was scheduled.  The cruise people spun it as something special because the big cruise ships generally don’t get permission to go up Endicott and this would be only the second time for Rhapsody to visit it.  Since I’ll probably never see Tracy Arm I can’t compare the two, but, honestly, I can’t imagine it being more beautiful than Endicott Arm turned out to be.

The ship cruised through a fairly narrow passage with sheer cliffs on each side.  Waterfalls were abundant; some dropping over 1000 feet and many were quite large.  At times, the mountains on either side were higher than could be seen looking out the windows.  We saw, literally, hundreds of waterfalls.  Ultimately, we arrived at the glacier.  It was taller than Mendenhall, which we saw the day before.  I couldn’t believe how close the ship came to the face of Dawes Glacier.  In anticipation of the scenery, Jackie and I had staked out a couple of window seats on deck 11 and it turned out to be the perfect place.  We took over 200 photos, although I managed to cull the number down quite a bit.  The trip back out enabled us to see the opposite side of the Arm and weather conditions had improved a bit so the photos we took on the way out were somewhat brighter than those we took going in.

Back out in the Inside Passage we saw several dolphin and a few whales.  We decided to skip the main dining hall again and eat at the Windjammer buffet.  By being there when they opened the doors we were able to get a window table right at the front of the ship.  The view from there was neat and we even saw a couple of whales as we ate a leisurely supper.  All in all, in spite of the change of itinerary and the inclement weather, we thoroughly enjoyed the day.  Because of the diversion, we were told we were headed to Ketchikan on Tuesday.

I was rather disappointed when the ship began to rock and roll mid evening.  I’m not sure, but I think we went back out into the open sea for the overnight journey.  Maybe it has something to do with opening the Casino.  Also, there was some kind of poker tournament going on during the cruise.  Since the pre-cruise information said we were supposed to cruise the Inside Passage on our journey south and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed that we were, once again, moving out of sight of land.  About 9:30 I went to bed to escape some of the discomfort of walking around in the up and down, back and forth motion of the ship.  Jackie and I had no problem with sea sickness, but after a while I started feeling somewhat dizzy.  Just in case I took some motion sickness pills and then, in the night, I ate a few Rolaids.

You can see our photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastorscott.com

Arrival in Juneau wasn’t till late morning, but overnight we had moved back toward land and by breakfast time there were tree covered mountainous islands on both sides of us.  The feeling was something like taking a cruise through the Rocky Mountains!  The day was hazy and cloudy but as we got closer to land we could see snow fields and waterfalls.

We were happy to see that a worship service was scheduled and at 8:00 we made our way to the “Shall we Dance” Lounge for church!  Our speaker was none other than Joel Olsten of Houston Lakewood Church.  However, I must hurry to add that it was on video.  Around 30 of us remembered that it was the Lord’s Day and took time for a worship service.

As we approached land the motion of the sea was replaced once again by the rumble strips we felt in Puget Sound.  Also, the land on either side of the ship narrowed the waterway as we continued.  It was exciting to near our first port, but the weather was discouraging.  The rain and clouds and wind and 57 degrees reminded us that we were, indeed, on the coast of Alaska.

Two other cruise ships were already in port and the remaining slot looked like it was an afterthought.  The ship was brought about broadside into the wind and the captain worked for quite some time to bring the Rhapsody to that dock.  However, the wind pushing against our 11+ story vessel won the battle.  As we ate an early lunch the ship was backed away and announcements were made that an effort would be made in 45 minutes or so to dock the ship.  When the ship’s side thrusters were used at full power the Windjammer vibrated to the point that we wondered if dishes would start breaking.

An hour or so later we were finally docked.  It was announced that those with RCI expeditions were to disembark first, based on their tour times.  We “independent” cruisers could ask for special dispensation to leave the ship, otherwise, the general ship population was to wait.  So we waited 45 minutes or so to leave the ship.  When our turn came, we paid $3 to be shuttled closer to town where the other ships were docked.

We then paid $14 each for a round trip to Mendenhall Glacier.  As we got off the bus we were awestruck with the beauty of the blue glacier.  Words can’t describe it and photographs can’t capture it.  In spite of the rain and clouds we were thrilled with it all.  As we arrived, we walked along an elevated boardwalk that overlooks a nearby stream.  Almost beneath our feet a large black bear meandered along the stream which was filled with salmon.  Then someone pointed out a large porcupine that was up in a tree.  Soon, though, rain gear and all, we walked out to the point where we could get the best views of the glacier and the huge waterfall just to the right of it.  Mendenhall is unforgettable; a wonderful experience.

Back in Juneau the rain continued.  Jackie did some shopping, making her major purchases of the trip.  I was happy with the Alaska baseball caps I found.

Because of the lateness of docking and it being Sunday we didn’t make the Alaska State Museum or the public library.  The port area has a lot of nice shops, however, so we weren’t too disappointed and took our time looking around before returning to the ship.

We ate at the buffet in the Windjammer and went to the only show we would see on the whole trip.  We aren’t “show people” so the song and dance was interesting to us, but not the high point of the trip.

You can see our photo album at http://picasaweb.google.com/pastorscott.com