[Juneau, AK, Jul 26, 2024]

When Olivia found this small-ship adventure cruise to Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, I couldn’t say no. A national park was involved, I’d never been to Alaska and I’d never been on a cruise, so this trip was going to check a lot of boxes! We synced our calendars and picked July 28th to August 4th for our week-long cruise starting and ending in Juneau. July 28th was a Sunday, so it seemed like a waste to not arrive early and utilize the weekend. And that’s how Olivia and I ended up in Seattle on Friday, July 26th waiting for our flight to Juneau.

We both realized that July 26th was the day in 2015 that we departed on our first trip together, to Glacier National Park in Montana! We looked up the photo from that day and we took another to put them side by side. We look the same, no?

I laughed when I looked at the 2015 photo more closely. I still have the shirt I am wearing in it and, in fact, I almost wore it on this trip. It’s one of my go-to travel tees.

Our flight to Juneau had 3 of the most ridiculous delays I’ve ever heard of. First, boarding was delayed because the cabin was too hot and they had to turn the AC on to cool it down. Seemed like a foreseeable thing to me, but whatever. Then, once on the plane, we had to wait for an oxygen mask to be replaced. We were finally in line to take off when the pilot said we have to wait for a drone above the runway to go away. Ugh! We finally departed 50 minutes later than anticipated, which made me nervous because I had a car rental reservation at the only company that stayed open late enough for us to pick up and I didn’t want to miss it!

Finally, a break in the cloud cover for my first glimpse of Southeast Alaska scenery!

Luckily, we were able to get to the rental car counter with 30 minutes to spare. It had been a long day for both of us, so we checked into our hotel downtown and promptly went to sleep, hoping for the rain and clouds we saw on our arrival to clear a little the next day.