The shape and size was so impressive that my initial reaction was “A dinosaur? In Alaska??”

… now on to a school bus to get to the lodge. And we thought school was over for summer vacation!!

… to really remote Glacier Bay. 14 minute flight. That is about the only option to reach there.

Added after landing: Wheels up to wheels down 10 min 20 sec and Alaska Air flew a 737-400 for this!!!

This raptor is our national bird (and national animal too, as it turns out) and found all over Juneau – but mostly sitting on the light posts along Glacier Highway…

(taken from the Sky Tram)

Per capita number of airplanes and helicopters in Alaska is many many times more than the rest of US. Because most of Alaska (more than 90%) is not reachable by roads, these are the most common options (other than boats if you are off the water) both for business as well as tourism. I tried counting the number of non-government non-military airports in Alaska in Wikipedia (including seasonal airports and seaplane ports). I gave up after counting to 400!! Just to understand how akin these are to car parking lots, only 8 of them have control towers!!