Tuesday 29 May 2007 is an all day affair in Juneau Alaska. Any of you that have been to Juneau know that Juneau is all about Mendenhall glacier, so that was where we went for our excursion off the ship.

Today we are gonna check out the shops downtown, get our free stuff that is all over town, take the tram up Mount Roberts, canoe across Mendenhall lake to Nugget Falls which is near Mendenhall glacier and Freddy gave me a VIP prefered guest card to talk with a Sabastion at Goodmark jewelers about the precious stone alexandrite.

Slept in today till 4:30am. Been sleeping in everyday of this trip. I am really taking advantage of this time off! Once up and about I always go up on deck with the cameras to take pictures and video. After a stroll outside I sit in the writing room to make a journal entry while sipping on hot coffee. I try to let Nik and Michelle sleep till at least 7am, I mean we are on vacation! After they get up and ready we hit the breakfast buffet and then head into town.

The day started off with a drizzle so we brought our rain gear just in case it decided to rain. As we made our way into town it was just overcast with a few sun breaks, very nice. So we stopped at all the tourist trap shops and got out trinkets and whatever other impulse buys we came across, like a little soft plastic moose on a key chain that has some poo come out when you squeeze em, lol. When you are on vaction you buy stuff like this.

One shop had a jewelry store in it as well so we were checking out rings for Michelle that had a stone called mystic topaz. This stone is popular in Alaska as a momento of trips to the last frontier because it has all the colors of the Aurora Borealis, so it is also known as a northern lights topaz.

Michelle found one she liked and it was only $400, what deal! I decided to shift gears and see if they had any alexandrite. Of course they did, so the gal takes us right over to the womens rings with alexandrite in em. No, this for me sweetheart! She just assumed it was for Michelle cause we were looking a rings for her.
As it turns out there is only one men’s ring with alexandrite in the store. it was a beautiful 1.53ct stone in a large gold ring with gold nuggets surrounding the stone, for only $39,000! WHAO NELLIE!

But wait, this is the full retail price in California, lol, it will be much less here in Juneau, she said. We were told by Freddy that Alaska is like the close out place for jewelry from the Caribbean and California so items can be a lot less expensive. And it was but not enough where I would pull the trigger on it even though she did say she would kick in Michelle’s mystic topaz ring. I got out of there as quickly as I could!

The problem with leaving that store is we noticed Goodmark Jewelers across the street and since I have the VIP pass from Freddy to go see Sebastion I figured why the heck not?

As we walk into the store there standing behind the counter is this tall blonde guy who has to be one of the 3 most beautiful people in the entire world and looks to be about 22 years old. He asks if I need any help in a thick German accent. I just decline and kept walking to find somebody that would seem to be a knowledgeable jewelry guy. The next guy had that look so I asked for Sebastion. He promptly points to the pretty, tall, blonde German kid………great.

So I tell him we are interested in alexandrite, he promptly takes us over to a massive collection of women’s pieces, lol. Once we break the news to him that we are looking for a man’s piece he informs us he has no men’s rings in stock and that a shipment is to arrive today via Fed-Ex.

“No matter” he says as he starts to show me rocks in women’s settings, not the prices, just the stones. They are great looking and I learned a lot about alexandrite as he is showing them to me, that is for sure. It is now obvious to me that Sebastion is not only a model, he is extremely knowledgeable in the field of rare stones and jewelry.

I know both of these facts because he talks not only with a fantastic German accent but what he says as he answers my questions rings true and sincere to me without thought and Michelle is never more than a foot away from the German cover boy.

Even though the stones he is showing me are in women’s settings, they can be taken out and put into a man’s ring. So it is about picking a stone, the thing is price. I ain’t paying $35,000 for a piece of alexanderite!

My interest is starting to rise as I find out that the ring is guarranteed to appreciate in value by 20% in two years or I can get a full refund if it doesn’t or if I simply do not want it any longer. I also find out that the ring we were looking at at the other store is not true alexandrite and has been chemically modified to have the coloring of alexandrite I realized it is very important to deal with people that are on the straight and narrow with vast knowledge of the industry when making such an investment.

And an investment is exactly what this ring is since alexanderite is the only precious stone on the planet that will increse in value in our lifetime. Not only would this ring be an upgraded wedding ring for me but a Gusinsky family heir loom to pass down to Nikolai one day………hopefully many decades from now, lol.

So by this time I have settled on a stone but now it is time to talk price and I say as much to Sebastion. I suggest that the other sales man, Mark, working with Sebastion take Michelle to go look at some mystic topaz rings.

Before we talk price Sebastion asks to be excused and takes off into the back. He comes back a couple minutes later wanting to know which way I would like to set the stone, north/south or east/west? I say definitely east/west and he concures it is the best.

So this is when he brings out a gorgeous solid gold ring with a band of gold nuggets across the top. He is trying to set the hook, lol. He says I must have a ring to set the stone in first. How much for the ring is my response of course, lol. “Just over cost”, whatever that is, is the reply.

So now Michelle and Mark go to look at the mystic topaz section while Sebastion and I “talk”. After some negotiation a price was settled upon for the stone and shortly after that Michelle came back with a ring “exactly what she has been looking for”.

I glanced at Sebation and said, you know, the other store was going to throw in the mystic topaz if I bought the alexandrite.” No hesitation from Sebastion, “done!”. That was easy.

So now it was time to actually pull the trigger, I wanted to go over the deal one more time to be certain that this was absolutely the rock bottom, can’t get any lower price. Sebastion assured me it was. So I said we have a deal if you pay the tax, lol, he rolled his eyes and we had a deal!

I must be out of my mind, I don’t even wear jewelry! About this time I flipped over the price tag on Michelle’s mystic topaz ring that also had some kinardly diamonds as well, $874! He threw that in, I didn’t realize it was that much, at the other store it was just under $200, but it was probably a much lower grade as this is a legitiment jewelry store, the other place sells, tee shirts, postcards and fudge. What a negotiator I am, lol.

What are kanardly diamonds you are asking. Kandardly diamonds are stones you can hardly see, you kanardly see em, lol.

At any rate, I signed on the dotted line and they had to get the woman’s ring with the stone and my new gold nugget ring to the jeweler to set it in my ring. This was gonna take some time which worked out for us because we had a shore excursion to go on a canoe ride on Mendenhall lake to see the glacier and waterfall.

Just as we were leaving the store to meet our tour guide for the canoe trip, Sebastion was about to leave to the jeweler with the goods, he said he was going to sit right there while he did his work, no way he was going to leave the alexanderite alone with anyone. Must be good stuff!

We made our way back to the dock where we were to meet our ride to take us to the edge of the lake. It was a nice short drive out of town and once to the lake our guide was right there waiting for us with the canoe in the water and a pile of rain gear and life jackets for us to put on.

We brought our own rain gear, good mossbacks never leave the house without it, lol. So we got our gear on, the day was very nice at this point so I stayed in my short sleeves, but just like in Washington, just wait a bit and the weather will change.

Our guide gave us some instruction and a short safety talk and then it was time to load up. He said the people who sat in the front set the pace for the whole boat and wanted volunteers for that position, I volunteered to be in the front but other than that, everyone just sat back and looked at the ground, lol. Michelle would have went to the front with me but with Nik being along she had to be next to him so they were directly behind me. Someone else ended up being in the front with me.

Once we got out and under way we were paddling along at a nice pace, our guide talking about the sites all along the way. It was nice to paddle along in a 12 person replica dugout canoe made to look like it was carved from an ancient cedar log, but it was mostly some sort of carbon fiber glass type stuff.

As we made our way through the ice chunks in the water from the glacier I glanced back to find everyone taking pictures or just taking in the sights, meanwhile, I am paddling all by my lonesome!

Nik started out paddling but mostly all he did was splash me so I had to relieve him of his paddle, if I was going to paddle everyone across the lake then I would rather do it dry from the cold glacial lake water!

The lake was beautiful, it had that emerald color to it, the waterfall in the distance, ice bergs all around in the water, surrounded by mountains. Up where the glacier was you could see the top as it climbed up the mountain side but the bottom was obstructed by a penninsula of land that stuck out.

As we cleared that penninsula you got to see the massive shear face of Mendenhall glacier. It was spectacular. Some deep blue streaks where it had calved recently and many ice bergs floating as well, meanwhile the roar from Nugget Falls was getting louder and louder. Again, I am the only one paddling here.

As we approach the beach near the waterfall our guide inspires the crew of paddlers with the fact that there is caribou sausage and drinks waiting for us at the beach, all of a sudden a few others are paddling!

Once ashore, we made our way over to be near the waterfall, it was fantastic. Our guide said if you look closely at the area where the water was coming over the cliff you can see how large the falls get when the snow and ice melts up the valley which sends more water over the falls, it was massive. That must be something else when that happens but it was impressive even at this flow. This is as close to the glacier as you can get unless you take a helicopter ride to the top.
After taking loads of pictures, video and Nik throwing 921 rocks into the lake, it was time to paddle back, this is about the time it started to rain so on went the Frogg Togg rain jacket. That and a wide brim hat and you are dry.

On the paddle back, which was more of the same, me paddling and everyone else watching the eagles flying around us and the one eagle that had a seagull in it’s talons on one the bigger ice bergs in the lake. I guess he got tired of that seagull pestering it so he got lunch.

After we got back to shore, got our rain gear off, we were taken back to town where went back to Goodmark jewelers to pick up the ring.

It was ready. We were greeted like returning royalty by the Goodmark staff lead by Sebastion. News traveled fast, even Freddy, our shopping director from the ship was their. “News travels extremely fast when some alexandrite is bought”, she said.

After being congratulated and presented the ring we were on our way, did a bit more store hopping and made our way to the tram to take a ride to the top of Mount Roberts.

The gondola ride to the top of the nearly 2000 foot point was very sceanic. You could see all of Juneau and the surrounding area, very pretty and a fun ride. At the top are sceanic vistas of the city, shops and resturaunts.

One gift shop is the only place in town we could find a collectors spoon that had Juneau engraved on it. I had called Uncle Eric earlier in the day and told him that if he spotted one during his travels in town to buy it, and guess what, he did. So anyone out there that really needs a spoon that says Juneau Alaska on it, I have an extra!

We made our way back to the ship to dry off, shower and get ready for supper. We didn’t tell anyone about the rings, we wanted to spring it on em.

I kept asking Uncle Eric if he bought anything “cool” in Juneau while holding my hand with the ring on it to my face…….Nothin.

Asked Wayne and Doug if they got any “neat free stuff” in town while stroking my beard with my ring hand. “Not really” was the reply.

I said, ” Michelle did”. And she showed them here “free” $874 mystic topaz with kinardly diamonds.

Their response was “that was free, where!”

“Goodmark Jewelers, if you bought this” as I showed them my gold nugget with alexandrite ring.

The question then came up from Doug, “how much was that”?

I told them and Doug says “no really, how much was it”?

I just laughed and told them again.

We love our rings and it is a great memory for what was a great trip. The ring seems to be a neat investment, it ain’t going up in value like my Boeing stock but it will be passed down to Nik who already wants it but doesn’t understand how things get passed down and he is to young to be worrying about such things.

The overall experience was fantastic and it is really owed to Michelle who convinced me to do this and to Sebastion who is one of the best sales people I have come across in making you feel comfortable and not pressured to pull the trigger. The knowledge that came from him on this stone and the price that he gave me made me feel like we got an outstanding deal, so I did get a good deal.

Freddy is also to blame because she started this whole thing and got me intriqued about a rare Russian stone. I will recommend Goodmark to everyone and if ever in Juneau, you must go see Sebation and Mark at Goodmark jewelers, they are top shelf.

Today will be a great memory, always triggered when I wear my ring. Check out the pictures that go with this day in the photo sets on the left of the home page. Click North to Alaska Day 5 for pictures.