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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

Alaska eats more ice cream per capita than any other state.

My neighbor Crandall, who told his doctor he isn’t overweight, he’s just easy to see, doesn’t know for certain if Alaska eats that much ice cream, but he thinks it does. He’s been accused of suspecting more than he knows.

Ragged clouds cling to Juneau and its sprawling mountains, fjords and ice fields. Juneau is a town of 31,685 people, which hosts over a million cruise ship passengers per year. That means all credit cards are welcome in Juneau. The mountains are dressed for the prom. It’s the land of the devil’s club salve. Devil’s club, a plant armed to the teeth with spines, is said to be adaptogenic with compounds that help bodies manage various stressors, but it makes a lousy TV remote.

One speed limit sign in Juneau tells drivers to go no faster than 19 1/2 mph. It’s supposed to make drivers think more about the speed limit. Always a rebel, I drove 19 3/4 mph.

Juneau’s Costco has a total square footage of 76,696, about half the size of a typical store, which at 160,000 square feet is just smaller than three football fields or three White Houses. I didn’t go in. The world’s smallest Costco was too small for me.

The Red Dog Saloon displays a pistol (a Smith & Wesson No. 3 revolver) thought to belong to Wyatt Earp, who fought at the Shootout at the O.K. Coral in Tombstone, Arizona. Legend says U.S. Marshals confiscated the revolver when Earp was changing steamships in Juneau. He left for Nome before the federal offices reopened and his gun went unclaimed. However, the Nome Daily News reported his arrest in a drunken brawl on June 29, 1900, the same day he allegedly left his gun in Juneau.

Overlooking the Lynn Canal about 22 miles north of Juneau is the Shrine of Saint Therese, which has offered respite for people of all faiths for over 80 years and honors a message of St. Thérèse, the patron saint of Alaska, that beauty is found in simple ordinary events. Amid the towering spruce trees lies a chapel built of rounded river rocks and a labyrinth, a series of concentric circles designed for walks to recharge mind, body and soul.

The aluminum ice cube tray in our old refrigerator was pretty impressive, as it made 14 ice cubes at one time, which were freed by a pull of a lever, but the easily accessible Mendenhall Glacier has way more ice than that and it’s only a few miles from the airport. You won’t believe your ice.

I took a bus back to my hotel after visiting the Glacier. I left the bus in the hotel’s parking lot. I enjoy public transportation. Jimmy Buffett said, “Life is more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.” A bus provides both. I took my seat on a city bus. A guy seated near me had a suitcase, backpack and a couple of garbage bags lumped with something. I asked him if he’d just gotten off the ferry. He responded in the negative. “You flew in?”

“Nope,” he said. “I’m moving to a new place.”

He sensed what my next question was going to be and added, “It’s going to take a few bus rides.”

The next day, as I was about to go through security screening to fly out of Juneau, I showed a TSA agent my boarding pass and photo ID.

“Minnesota, eh?” he said. “I’m going to ask you a question and your answer will determine whether you’ll be flying today.”

He asked me what my favorite lake was. I answered, “St. Olaf.”

The agent, born in Hibbing, told me that wasn’t the correct answer, but he let me fly because I didn’t answer “Lake Minnetonka.”

Juneau has an outdoors bigger than the Minnesota Vikings’ offensive line, including both the starters and the bench. I’m not kidding. I used to lead tours there and one in my group said, “This beautiful place can’t exist in the world.”

How can you not enjoy visiting an area where the Mendenhall Glacier refuses to give you the cold shoulder?

Al Batt’s columns appear every Wednesday in the Tribune.