Haines and Juneau 13th - 16th Aug

Haines was the most interesting town we had visited since Valdez - it’s a pretty town with lots of decent shops and lots to keep the visitor entertained - laundry, internet, the library, bars and the brewery down at ‘Dalton City’ (the set of the Disney film White Fang). After sampling the local beer down at said brewery, we made our way to the Fogcutter Bar where, feeling rather adventurous, we invested in $10 worth of ‘pull-tabs’ (basically paper fruit machines). The first one I opened won me $100 and Paul was not far behind winning $102 on the second batch. Luckily, after the third batch we decided to save our pennies for the pool table instead. Pull-tabs are a big pastime in Alaskan bars; unfortunately people rely on them to pay the rent and the sight of so many tabs being pulled, with beer after beer, is quite sad indeed.

Most importantly, though, we were united with Paul’s bicycle fork at the post office. We stayed in a great BandB in the Fort Seward part of town (Fort Seward Bed and Breakfast), with an excellent view overlooking the bay. Afer a day and half relaxing in Haines, it was back on the Alaskan Marine Highway to the capital Juneau. However, the ferry’s departure was considerably delayed by various over-sized cumbersome RVs which had to be reversed very slowly onto the car deck by their drivers. But cyclists never complain…

Arriving five hours later in Juneau under a still blue sky, we cycled down Juneau’s one main road to our hosts John and Stephanie’s house in North Douglas. They’d very kindly kept the delicious salmon off the barbie until our delayed arrival. Their excellent hospitality continued over the next couple of days with Stephanie giving us an off the beaten track tour (away from jostling cruise-ship tourists) of the impressive Mendenhall Glacier, icebergs and falls, and especially arranging for a family of bears to come out for a feed and a few photos (but not without a jostle with said tourists!). It did not stop there; we were taken to a delicious pot luck dinner at a fantastic beachfront wooden house with their friends, and John spent the best part of the following day replacing Paul’s fork. All of which we were very grateful for!

Juneau is a very scenic and small town nestled between towering mountains, although marred somewhat by the continuous and incongruous presence of multi-story cruiseliners coming in and out the harbour. We highly recommend Juneau’s barbers - Paul came out with a very dapper haircut - unfortunately the same cannot be said of the beauty salons, which did not meet Mari’s standard of legwax in Valdezorras (Sevilla) back home; it took twice as long, three times the price and four times the mess with very mediocre results. (Any recommendations for reasonably priced beauty salons with experienced staff further south - Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA and anywhere in between are very welcome).

Despite being a dreadful experience for my wallet and my poor legs, the two-hour session gave rise to some very interesting conversation highlighting yet more incongruous surprises about certain American values. She was a lovely girl, aged 22 and half-way through her first pregnancy. Our most interesting topic evolved when she expressed her disbelief that a sixteen-year old girl she knew was going to Thailand (and that her mother was letting her!!) when there were so many earthquakes there. This confused me somewhat as Thailand is not usually famed for its earthquakes. The confusion was rapidly resolved however, when she mentioned it wasn’t actually Thailand she was referring to but a big island with Chinese people (sic) and lots of volcanos on it - oh, Japan! This girl happily told me that she lives in a house full of guns, has three grizzly bears come regularly and feed off her rubbish, and, in all likelihood, her future children would learn to hunt. Not only this, she lives in a state where 165 earthquakes happen every week, and three out of four earthquakes that occur in the world, occur in Alaska. And Japan is scarier than Alaska? The source of this great fear of Japan was…the Discovery Channel. The blatant lack of fear of all the imminent dangers surrounding her, I will never know.

These and other necessities being completed, Paul and I headed off back to the ferry terminal, but not before I bashed and bloodied my ankle with the back of my pedal in one of my usual flappy bouts of stress…

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