Over the course of our our eleven day holiday I missed three days of running. The most common reason for a missed run over the past few years is early morning travel. I am a morning runner and find it very difficult to do a run once the days activities are set in motion.

We traveled to Portland, Oregon, Juneau, Haines and Skagway in Alaska, then Whitehorse, followed by a half day visit to Vancouver.

Missed Day #1 – We had to leave our home at 6 a.m. to catch our flight to Portland. Missed Day #2 In Haines, Alaska, we left our motel at 5:30 a.m. to catch a fast-ferry to Skagway.  Missed Day #3 A 6:00 a.m. departure from our lodgings in Whitehorse to catch our Vancouver flight.

I’ve described our run in Portland and here are photos from the run that followed in Juneau.  Spotted on the run were these four blue heron, the only heron seen on this trip.  On my last trip to Juneau, I was staying at a lodge quite a way out of the city and I saw a bald eagle and twice, a pod of orcas.  No such luck this time.

Those sightings took place in early spring, when bears were not as active and probably hibernating, or so I told myself. I would not have ventured out on the roads in that quieter area of Juneau otherwise.

This  Juneau run was 2.5 miles through the main street of town, through a souvenir store and along the waterfront. I ran through a gauntlet of large ravens which would definitely scare off anyone with ornithophobia.

This first morning in Juneau was much enjoyed as our late evening arrival in Juneau introduced us to the rough edges of the city that appear once the cruise ships depart. There is urban sprawl in Juneau and the downtown has suffered in that it caters almost exclusively to tourists in the day and seems a bit like a deserted and rundown, Disneyland set in the later evening. In the early morning, locals heading off to work abound and chit chat in the local coffee shop was congenial and lively.

I was motivated to do a short run in anticipation of brunch at my brother’s favourite Juneau breakfast place, The Sandpiper.

My breakfast of corn beef hash and poached eggs was tasty although was quite far off the scrumptious version dished out by Kenny and Zuke’s in Portland which at $11.45 was $2.50 cheaper than the Sandpiper’s version. Alaska can be fairly pricey.  Portland’s version of corn beef hash is to Alaska’s, as king crab is to non-king-crab. Read the review, “Can the Jewish Deli be Reformed?” from the NY Times.

Scrumptious and leisurely breakfasts are one of the best parts of vacationing. On our last day in Portland I ordered corn beef hash and cheese blintzes.  Yes, I confess that with minimal worries about weight gain, I am a bit of a piglet.  Although, I’m still tending towards the broken-scale theory as I can’t figure out how I gained five pounds on our fairly active vacation.