Ketchikan, Day 2

Today was a rainy day. . . still IS a rainy day. We have been blessed with very few of those in Alaska, considering in many of the areas we traveled especially down through the inside passage, this is the norm for the area. There is still a beauty in the fog and mist, but it makes enjoying walking in the downtown area a bit problematic. I did take this pix of a house on an island at low tide. These houses have no services to them, they have to make their own power, etc.

We were able to get filled with fresh water today in town. We went to the water company and they were very gracious and allowed us to fill.

We went down and shopped at one place that closed on us yesterday. Seems once the cruise ships leave, a lot of the shops close up. But we made it today and got our purchases made early. We were able to park on the street but it was a bit tricky getting out. If it had been dry today, we would have probably parked elsewhere.

The destination today was Creek Street which was at one time the "red-light" district. At least one of the "bordellos" still exists and is maintained as such, but we thought the $10 price tag was a bit much. So we passed. We did walk through most of the shops on the "street" which is actually a boardwalk which extends out over the creek. It is very neat and clean and there is a wide variety of shops including food and souvenir shops along with galleries. Very unique area. The creek, Salmon Creek, runs under and through the shops area and there were some salmon running today. In fact, some seals had come up into the creek chasing the salmon. We had hoped to see bears, but the area is probably too populated for the bears. There is a park further up into the hills which we could walk too, but we decided to pass because of the weather. We may try it tomorrow.

Once we were done shopping, we went back toward the motorhome to a small local restaurant and had lunch. It is owned by a Filipino family and has been in the family for generations. We had a good lunch and it was nice and quiet. I snapped a picture of this totem near where we parked the motorhome. Ketchikan is considered the totem pole capital of the world.

Back at the motorhome, we headed for home, but we did make a detour. We drove out passed our camp to the end of the road. Yesterday we had gone to the end of the road on the other side of the town. There is a campground out there which was very nice. No hookups, but a nice campground with nice sites. One of the forest service camps is temporarily closed due to an aggressive bear in the area. In fact, they have closed the trails there as well.

Back at the camp, we crashed. It's hard to want to do anything in the wet outdoors, so we napped. Then later, I fixed supper, which was the fresh halibut the neighbors caught yesterday. They are keeping us in fish. It was very good and was much more than we could eat, so we will have leftovers. I did a load of laundry. I knocked Terry's coffee cup over this morning and spilled it all over his jeans, so I washed those. LOL

Tomorrow we board the ferry at 5:45 p.m. and sail two hours later. We have a 7.5 hour sailing to Prince Rupert. We will then be officially done with Alaska. It's been a great trip and we have enjoyed it. We are anxious to get back to family, but we still have a ways to go to get there. . . so be patient everyone!

Till next time. . .

Dale

Ketchikan, Day 1

We left this morning thinking we would scope out the parking situation in Ketchikan so when we were in town to shop, we would know where to go. We think we have that covered.

We also tried to find a place to fill our water tank. The water here in the park is full of tannins and it is the color of tea. We don't want to put that in our tank. It is supposed to be safe to drink, but everyone out here is using rain and pond water. I guess they use the RO systems, except in the RV park. We have been assured it is safe to drink, but we don't plan on doing that. The owner told us we could go to the water treatment plant and they would let us fill with fresh water. So off we went. No one was in that office but when Terry came out there were a couple employees in a company truck, so he stopped them and asked. Nope. No can do. They directed us down to the port and harbor office, so off we went again. They actually had a water spigot and hose out front, so Terry went in. Nope. . . city manager no longer allows RV's to fill there, but we could go down to a water station where they sell filtered water, so off we went. Nope. . . he won't sell you water unless you have a container and he wouldn't let us fill the motorhome. Bummer. So we will have to figure something else out. Terry thought maybe he could buy another filter and double filter the water. But no one in town had the filters and one filter isn't enough. We bought a case of bottled water at what has to be the world's smallest Wal-Mart and will use a bucket to flush with if we run out of water.

So off we went in search of adventure. We ended up once again running the road out to the very end looking for a preserve. We ended up calling them to find out where they were located. We eventually found the business, but decided to pass because the small parking lot was full. We are most interested now in seeing bears fish in the streams and they weren't doing that today. All was not lost, however, because we found a lovely spot for lunch and pulled into the turnout and enjoyed lunch while watching a beautiful vista.

Back to town, we found a place to park and started walking down the boardwalk toward the shopping district. We were in front of a couple cruise ships. Like Juneau, these ships park right in town. It is pretty weird to see ships so close to the dock you can touch them and extending up several stories. These towns really cater to these cruise ships, too. They do assume that everyone who comes in is off a boat. They are really surprised when we tell them we are here in our RV. We came here on PURPOSE! The cruisers came here because the boat stopped here. LOL

We ended our day at the Visitor's Bureau. . . yeah, I know that's backwards! But they weren't busy and the gal was helpful. I asked her if she knew of any place we could fill our RV with water. She was surprised that we had trouble and said that in the town meetings they continually talk about how they need to get more RV travelers into town. One of her friend's husbands is a big wheel in the treatment plant in town, so she called her friend who in turn called her husband. When it was all done, we were told to go tomorrow to the treatment plant and fill with water. If we have any trouble, we are supposed to them them to call Paul. Hahaha. Guess we will get that done tomorrow. Hee hee.

On the way back to the car, we saw this ship. This is a ship that is on "Deadliest Catch." In the "off" season, they take people out on the ship and actually throw out the crab pots, etc., then pick them up and show the visitors the types of sea creatures they get. They do all catch and release on these tours. Our neighbors in the park went out with them yesterday. He said it was very interesting.


Back at our campsite we pulled in only to find that our door mat was missing. Someone had taken it. Isn't that just peachy. In eight years of fulltiming, we have never had anything taken. And a dirty old mat. We kept it in front of the door so we could wipe our shoes off. I guess someone needed it more than we did. It wasn't worth much, but it still made me mad. We went up to the office and reported the theft. Tomorrow when we go out for the day, we will be sure to pick up our lego leveling blocks. Sure don't want to lose those.

Tomorrow we are going to go to town and do "Creek Street." This is the former "red-light" district and is now different kinds of shops. Looking forward to that. We also have the totem historical park, but that may be Wednesday's adventure. We leave Wednesday, but don't have to board the ferry till 5 p.m.

Till next time. . .

Dale

Arrived in Ketchikan

Not much to add about our trip yesterday except that at one point, we sailed alongside a pod of humpback whales. Wow. There may have been 30-40 of them. There were spouts everywhere! They were spouting, coming up to the surface, rolling, and generally putting on a show.

One was really playful. . . he was "lobtailing" which means he would stick his tail up kinda crooked, then slap the water with it. Not the same as getting a look at the tail going straight down. He did this repeatedly--putting on a show for us. His tail was huge too. We saw probably dozens of tails as the whales dove. It was quite a sight. They were not very close to the ship, except for "lobtailer" so it wasn't a good picture opportunity. I have found that it is so hard to get good wildlife pictures that I chose to enjoy this show rather than miss it trying to capture the exact moment in a picture.

We went to our cabin and tried to get some sleep, but that was hard. The bed was comfortable, but it was just a different setup, so we didn't get much sleep.

We got up about 5:00 a.m. and saw a cruise ship outside our window. He was headed to Ketchikan as well. We got into port about 6:30 a.m., stopped at McDonald's for breakfast and checked out the town first, just doing a drive through. It seems a lot larger and more spread out than Sitka, although Sitka is larger. We chose to stay here in camp which is about 14 miles from town and rest up and get laundry done. . . then tomorrow we will go back to town and do some exploring.

Till next time. . .

Dale