I touched a glacier.. and now I feel weird.

 

After several days at sea we landed in Juneau Alaska for a day and a half. If you remember from earlier Juneau is the Capital of Alaska, and is only accessible via plane or cruise ship.

Sounds exciting right?

Visits are usually on a bigger plane though.

Well... let me stop you right there. Juneau is a tourist town. When the cruise ship disembarked, the streets were flooded with camera happy fat overweight rude and obnoxious, tourist. 

And there are so many selfie sticks!

In town, there are the same shops over and over advertising cheap furs, jewelry and jerked salmon to anyone that will stop and make eye contact for long enough.

It was interesting enough to visit once.. but there are some better spots in Alaska that I can recommend if you really want to come up here.

$35 per person to ride up to even more tourist traps

Here Carmen is on a remote side street enjoying some piece and quiet..

Not telling..

Oh look, a Bear. He seems friendly.

Noooooooo!

 

There was one very interesting part about Juneau. The Mendenhall Glacier area.

There is a Salmon breeding ground nearby and you can watch the salmon (it was in season for them) spawning right beneath you.

That's kind of gross now that I think about it.

Hey Baby.. What's your sign?

I'm a Pisces too! Let's do it!

But on to the glacier.

Obligatory group photo.

Suddenly... Merica!

Inside the educational visitor center there is a piece of 200 year old glacial ice that you can touch (or even lick if you are so inclined). 

This glacier used to be much larger. There are photos inside showing how much it has receded in the last 25 years.

I humbly challenge anyone who doesn't think that climate change is happening to look into the facts and photos without previous bios or outside influence.. PLEASE do some honest research into how we have affected the earth and what long term issues we are going to have to deal with.

- Alaska is hot.. the hottest that it has EVER been in all of its recorded history.

- There are fires in the Pacific Northwest (where we are now) that should never have happened, these forests should not have dried out as much as they are now.

- Salmon are dying from the water being too hot for them as water temperatures are nearing lethal levels for fish.

Instead of sitting in our Air Conditioned House we are out seeing the world and witnessing first hand how we are devastating our planet.

It kind of depresses us as I know that even if I convince you personally that we are all damaging the Earth, there is very little that you or I can do to change it.

Any suggestions are welcome..  

Don't shoot the messenger.