Glacier Bay National Park

Sue and I got our money of of the Tour Saver Book on this trip. The flight over on Wings Air was a 2 for 1 as was our lodging and day tour. Again we continue to have good weather as you will see in the pictures. Sue was a little apprehensive about the small plane but in the end was a happy girl and enjoyed the flight a lot. We had two nights in Glacier Bay Lodge. The meals here were great even though a bit on the high side. This was an anniversary outing for us.

The day trip was fantastic with Sea lions, Birds,  Goats, Bears, and oh by the way Glaciers.

Hope you enjoy the pictures here.

Juneau Day 1

Had to take one more picture of the RVs in Sitka this time from the Harbor looking up.

We are on a different boat from Sitka to Juneau than all of the other legs of the trip. The Fairweather is a 19200 horsepower catamaran. The specs say it can do 50 mph but cruises normal at 35 mph. This made for a 6 hour trip. It was also nice that we did not have to board in the middle of the night like the rest of the legs. We boarded at a nice 12:30 PM and arrived at 7:45 with one stop in Angoon. Angoon is another very small largely first nation village. A large supply of supplies were off loaded from the ferry. It was like Christmas in June for the people there.

  

It was a great day for the ride, partly cloudy and dry! This boat however has limited outside deck, only the back. Still manage to get some shots including the rainbow out the window.

  

Our first day was spent touring the Mendenhall Glacier National Park. Dave remarked on how much it had receded in the last four years.

 

The rest of the pictures are here.

Last day in Sitka

The sun has finally showed its head. We had already made up our mind to go come rain or shine. We were off the explore the Sitka National Historical Park. This is the location of the battle between the Tlingits and the Russians in 1804. For several days they fought with the Tlingits finally retreating to the other side of the island. Eventually they both learned to live together but were never trusting  of each other.

We had a lovely young ranger who had only been here a month lead us on the Totem walk. We were the only ones in the party which was very nice. We could ask all our question. This park has lots of maintained trails and was a very pleasant stroll.

After the park we walked about downtown. Hope you enjoy some of the flowers and much as we did. I have also included a video scan of downtown Sitka.

  

All the pictures are here.

Alaska Raptor Center

Today was our visit to the Alaska Raptor Center. You can find more information about the center at http://www.alaskaraptor.org. My pictures from there are here.

Sue, Susi, Dave and myself are going to dinner tonight at the Larkspur Café with a concert. More about that later.

Rainy in Sitka

Other than the day we arrived it has generally been rainy here is Sitka. Never to be kept from our appointed task of exploring each stop, Sue and I have driven the entire 14 miles of paved highway here. The rain is mostly a mist with gray skies most of the time. We have had some heavier showers at night. We have walked into town and explored. We toured St Michaels Cathedral and all the shops .  Found nothing that we wanted and or could afford.

They do get cruise ships. Some dock outside of town and bus the people to town. Some anchor in the harbor and use tenders to shuttle people back and forth.

Enjoy the pictures here.

Petersburg to Sitka

I will try to bring you up to date on our travels. On our last day  in Petersburg we stopped at the Eagles Roost Park. This was a pretty little city park right on the water.

   

Next was a trip to the Man made hole. This was a stone pit that they used to build the road. When they were finished with the road they decided to redirect a nearby stream to the pit to create a small lake. The water on the lake was so still and the light was flat since it was misting. The combination of the two resulted in  great reflections in the water. Please note the large Skunk Cabbage plant along the trail.

  

Next up was a potluck lunch with Susi’s painting Partners from Petersburg. See Susi’s blog entry about that.

The ferry from Petersburg was supposed to leave at 1:45 am but was late and did not leave until around 2:45 am. It is a  12 hour ride to make the trip to Sitka.  Needless to say, we took our sleeping bags and pillows and slept for part of the trip.  The ferry’s first stop was Kate which is largely a first nations village. As you can see, the ferry terminal was little more than a roof. After breakfast we enjoyed watching the boat navigate through some narrow passages and had fun spotting bears on the shore.  Getting off the ferry was a little bit of a challenge as Terry had to back the truck and trailer the length of the boat, make a 90 degree turn and then back up the ramp to get off.  Once again the ferry staff was extremely helpful and Terry managed to get off without any problems.

  

For all my Airstream Friends you must check out the Alaskan Flamingo Tree (definitely one of a kind).

 

It was less than 10 miles from the ferry dock to the campground where we would be staying for the next week.  Seal Cove RV park is basically a parking lot right on the harbor.  The view out our trailer window is beautiful and we have water and electric.  There are no showers available and no sewer hook up so we will be conserving our water all week.  The location is great as we are within walking distance of downtown Sitka.  We spent the rest of the day setting up camp and going to bed early as we were tired from the ferry ride.

 

There is a dormant volcano – Mt Edgecumbe just beyond our site.

There was one wee problem on our arrival.  We did not dump our tanks in Petersburg and with no sewer hookup here in Sitka we had to find the city dump station. Not really a problem since it was right down the road from our campground. The problem was they had these giant guard rocks at the entrance. Well I was trying to make sure the trailer did not hit one of them. Don’t you know the largest guard rock jumped in front of the truck and plucked my tire monitor off the valve stem to disappear forever. You guessed-- it a flat tire had to be changed right there in the entrance. Luckily after a having the stem replaced we were back in business. Just does not pay when you are tired.

After a good night's rest we were off to explore Sitka.

All of the pictures are here.

All of the albums for the trip can be found here.

Rainy Day in Petersburg

It started raining last night and continued all day. Our tire monitor alerted us that the truck definitely had a tire with a slow leak. We stopped at the local tire shop (really a do everything shop) and sure enough they found a screw in the tire. An hour later we returned to the trailer where we discovered a trailer tire was also leaking air very slowly. With the tire in the back of the truck we dropped off the tire to have it checked out. Meanwhile we decided to check out the harbor.  Dave  joined us while Susi was off on a painting outing with some local artists.

While the tire was being repaired we went down to the dock and to view some of the fishing boats and all the eagles which seemed to be everywhere you looked. There was also a harbor seal around the docks. We stopped to talk to Peter,  a fisherman, who was cleaning fish on his boat. The boat was currently rigged for long lining. The fish he had caught were yellow eyed rockfish. We later found out they are very similar to red snapper and are often served as snapper. Peter ended up giving us 3 fillets to take home. Guess what we had for dinner tonight. Grilled with Susi’s special sauce. We still have the largest piece to freeze for another meal. None of us thought to get pictures.

We watched another boat that  was preparing their nets for purse seining. This was a family affair untangling and organizing the net for deployment on the deck of the boat.  By then it was time for lunch and we sought out the local fish market for clam strips, halibut and salmon and then headed back to the tire shop. The tire turned out to have a nail in it. It was interesting to find out that one of the workers at the repair shop was originally from Cleveland, Ohio.