A place that’s known simply for being known, the Red Dog Saloon was nothing special for Becky and me. We stepped onto the Red Dog’s sawdust floor, saw lots of animal heads hanging on the walls, and stepped right back out.

In Juneau Becky and I took a helicopter tour of the beautiful Mendenhall Glacier. Approximately twelve miles long and one-and-a-half miles wide at its face, the Mendenhall “river of ice” moves an average of two feet per day (more in its center, less at its edges). The black you can see in the glacier is called flour and is the fine, silt-like powder from the rock that’s being carved by the glacier.

Please pardon the quality of this photo. I took it through the plexiglass windows of our helicopter.

Here’s our ’copter. When our pilot kicked us out, he headed back to the heliport to pick up another load of tourists. Once he returned with the fresh tourists, we loaded up and flew back to Juneau.

We landed on the glacier, walked around a bit, and took a few pictures. A break in the clouds rendered the frozen vistas a little more vibrant. We wore special non-slip boots and stayed on the glacier for half an hour or so.

I took this thirty-second movie clip as we flew up the glacier. It’s an amazing site when you consider that the glacier actually is moving.