Final day in Ketchikan. . . ferry to Prince Rupert, B.C.

First off, I must congratulate my son, Brandon, and his beautiful wife, Megan, on the birth today of their first child . . . a beautiful

little girl they named Brynlee. Congrats to them and I am anxious to see my newest grandbaby when we get back to the lower 48.

Our ferry leaves at 7:45 p.m., so we broke camp this morning and drove down to the Totem Park. This is a park that has many totem poles that were relocated here from other areas where they were deteriorating. They restored them and placed them in the park where people can walk around, view them, and learn the history that the totems tell.

Next door is a recreated village which is really a stop for the cruise lines. They own it and take the people off the cruise ships to this village they built. Hmmmm. Kind of strange. The biggest building there is the gift shop. . . small wonder. The carvings and totems here are authentic, I guess, but are new carvings and not historic. It was more of an exhibit to explain life of the natives, but there wasn't a lot to see. Mostly the bus drivers kept yelling at the people to get back on the bus. . . that they were taking too much time. LOL

We came on into town and took the by-pass up over the top of the village to a city park. This park sits at the top of the hill behind Ketchikan and the salmon come upstream here to spawn. And that is what they were doing apparently. Some were already dead. "Spawn till you die!" is the catch phrase around here. LOL We did a lot of walking around and went to the Totem Heritage Center where we took some more pictures of totems.

We eventually drove back downtown and are sitting in line now at the ferry dock waiting on our time to load. An eagle is sitting here watching our departure. We still have to pack up our freezer stuff, but that doesn't take long. We have a 7.5 hour sailing to Prince Rupert. We leave at 7:45 p.m. and arrive there at 3:15 a.m. We did book a cabin since it was overnight and it would be good if we could get some sleep before we get off the ferry. We will try anyway. Once off the boat, we plan to drive across Canada to Winnepeg, then start heading south. Not sure how long it will take us, but we are anxious now to get back so we can see our new grandbaby.

Till next time. . .

Dale

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