An uneventful trip on the Ferry, the scenery; glaciers and mountains, is beautiful.
There's talks on whale watching, we see none, other passengers report distant sightings of the spume and splashes.
We reach Juneau and it's beautiful - the glaciers behind the city, the way that they've done an amazing job of preserving the older buildings, built up and down mountainsides, there are shops filled with maritime antiquities, old books, it's somehow all very cool.
Our first stop is a hotel, any hotel, and we end up paying $200.00 a night for one in central Juneau. That's life in the big city.
But on the plus side we can walk around and explore, which we do.
The next day we find a place where we can pan for gold (aptly named "gold creek") and show some in the pan - my obligations for the trip are now fulfilled and the daughter has to acknowledge that I was right - although she begrudges me the creek ("It's called gold creek dad....").
We walk out to a point near the city and explore the tidal pools, no great discoveries here, mostly a crusty bed of mussels that the daughter is loathe to step upon, and then it's time to leave again upon the ferry...such is this whirlwind trip of Alaska.