Tender (Mis)Adventures by Jess and Patty

We dropped anchor in Juneau around noon and were set to board our tender boat at 1. What could go wrong? Well, if I learned anything from my first post, I wouldn't ask that. We headed down to the meeting spot for our Faster to the Fun tender group around 1:15. Around 1:30 we saw a lifeboat slowly drop down the side. 1:45 saw another. We realized that the lifeboats would be the tender boats. I had secretly wanted to see the inside of the lifeboat but wasn't too keen on the whole abandon ship route to that goal, so this was perfect.

By 2, we started to wonder when exactly we'd be boarding the boat. Then, they called Tender Groups 1 and 2 to board. Hold up. I thought this whole faster to the fun thing meant we were first.   It's okay, I told myself. We'd surely board any minute, right? By 2:30, we began to joke that we had accidentally joined the "laster" to the fun group. At 2:45, after waiting nearly two hours, they asked us to form a single file line and walk down to the tender boats. Hallelujah!

I have to say, I'm happy my lifeboat experience was only about 5 minutes long. It was such cramped quarters - let's just say you wouldn't want to be stranded at sea in one of those things.

We walked into our second jewelry shop to collect yet another free gift. The boys went across the street to check out a menu and the saleswoman latched on. For some reason, she thought my mom was interested in buying a ring. She pulled out a $3,300 chocolate ring and started bargaining. First, she offered $1,125 and threw in an Omega necklace. When my mom said that was too much, they offered $950. She shook her head - no way. I joked to the saleswoman, imagine buying a car with her. She laughed, but quickly returned to business. They asked how far apart we were from them. She answered 700. They misunderstood and countered $750. I'll check with my husband, my mom told them. In other words, no. We finagled our way out of the shop and continued on our free gifts hunt.

Some of the "free" gifts.  By now the boys had long left us and gone up the tram,

Jessica's roommate for the past two years has an Uncle who owns a couple of gift shops so we set off to introduce ourselves to him.  We found some fun items in his store,  We didn't buy these but we had some good laughs.

Libby's Uncle

When Jess and I finally made it to the top of the tram we found a famished Ben, Dave and Joe waiting for us in the restaurant.  We got down to ordering supper.

Joe started and said, "May I have the Wild Tongue-ass burger?"  The waiter tried to stifle his laughter and said, "you mean the tung-ess burger."  We had a good laugh over that.  Here's what that looked like.  

Then, my mom thought it would be funny to put an orange in her mouth. I literally have no idea what made her eat the orange or pose for the picture. I kid you not, there's never a dull moment. They even ordered a second round so they could each have an orange.

What can I say?  From supper Dave and Ben headed back to the boat.  As soon as they got back to the boat, Ben had a second dinner and by 9:30 pm he was having more.  Jess and Joe went on a long hike and I explored the nature center.

Real and amazing!