Hello again,
Picking up where I left off...
Ketchikan was our first stop and included act one of the Graceful Latin. Ketchikan is a very picturesque little town with a booming road construction business. Every road we set foot on was in some sort of disarray, but for what it's worth, there was only one main road with a nice sign that read "End of Road 4 miles" which from what we could tell was not too far beyond the Wal-Mart on the North end of town. We ate at a small hotel restaurant with a very friendly waitress from Romania, and a front desk clerk from who knows where that volunteered to keep an eye on Zev (tied out front) while my father and I shared a cinnamon roll and enjoyed a nice cup of hot coffee. There were tons of small boats and float planes in the area, and it seems that there must have been some unspoken rule about painting no two buildings alike. Some were bright pink next to aqua blue buildings, while others appeared to be ready for a bulldozer. Even though I would have enjoyed spending a little more time in Ketchikan, the ferry needed to depart, so we made our way back to the ferry with boarding passes & ID's in hand, and dog in tow. We discovered very quickly that having a Great Pyrenees with the right temperament was better than a passport! The boarding staff instantly recognized Zev with his gooney, floppy face, and since he spreads smiles effortlessly, we never actually had to show our boarding passes and ID's. The boarding staff simply smiled and waived us back on board.
Once back on board the Kennecott, my father and I enjoyed a drink or two in the ship's bar, and took lots of pictures from the outside boat decks. It was shortly after departing Ketchikan that we entered into the open ends of the straights where we had some semi-rough seas (16-20 feet), and the ship pitched and rolled enough to inspire some foolish teens to make an attempt at catching air off the downward side of the pitch by jumping with the boat on the peak of the upward side. Their game didn't last long as the temperatures plummeted and the freezing rain/mist started piling up on the deck. Everyone definitely had to grab onto the rails and walls to walk properly on that stretch of sea, but I enjoyed the peaks and valleys almost as much as the kids on deck, and my father and I still managed to click a few chilly pictures of the surrounding areas. We were also treated to a the sight of a few pods of porpoises racing along side the ship, and caught a glimpse at what we thought were Orcas. The scenery was incredible!
We then had stops in Petersburg, Wrangell and Juneau, before making the final stretch into Haines. The scenery just kept getting more and more spectacular, and the snow capped peaks all around looked like giant white sculptures shrouded in a forboding mist and fog. I was pleased to be a guest in all of this splendor, and could not take my eyes off of the horizon. I was reminded that in these parts of the world, Mother Nature rules above all, and that we are but temporary guests in her house who would be wise not to overstay our welcome. We discovered numerous horror stories of many ships that sunk along the Inside Passage in the not so distant past, and usually visible from shore (no swimming to shore in these frigid waters without a dry suit).
We arrived in Haines along with the beginnings of a snow storm, and found a quaint little hotel with some of the other guests from the ship. A few families along with us had exchanged phone numbers and agreed to caravan the 700 mile drive to Anchorage since it appeared the weather was not going to fully cooperate. The next morning, we all got started and made our way toward the Canadian border.
Along the way, we were treated to even more great views that were filled with so many Bald Eagles, that they began to look like small stray dogs. They were everywhere- in the trees, on the road, along the river beds! Hundreds if not thousands of these huge birds in all states of maturity were all within a few feet of us. It was very surreal.
On a different note, we arrived at the Canadian border 40 miles north of Haines where the boarder guard was a very surly woman who seemed to hate men, prefer women (in more ways than friendship), and was passionate about guns. She was out right rude to my father and the car ahead of us, but when she got to me and asked if I was carrying any weapons, to which I honestly replied that I had quite a few guns, she invited me to come inside to pick out candy while leaving my father out in the cold. Hmmm... At any rate, she only charged me $23.00 US, for my 4 guns (2 antiques, a rifle, and a shot gun) and gave me a brief history of each of them, complimenting their condition, and in one case the rare historical value. At that point, she waved me off, stamped my passport, and sent me out the door with an assortment of candy and a dog treat. I happily shared with my father and Zev.
We then headed up the road to Haines Junction in the Yukon. The road had all but disappeared due to the blinding snow storm, but we managed to get there in fair time. We stayed in a shoe box sized room with an impossible shower that required one to get up close and personal with the shower wall in order to get wet. My father warned me about the odd and impractical style of shower, but I actually laughed out loud when I attempted to wash my hair in the morning because it required a great deal of effort for someone with my short stature to even get my hair wet without a cup or bucket! I measured the entire shower dimensions as roughly 22 x 26 inches with the shower head perched in the corner close to 7 feet in the air with a rickety old shower head that was permanently fixed at an angle that only a person well over 6 feet tall and a razor thin body could appreciate. Certainly, no one shorter than 5 feet or any moderately fat people could even attempt a shower in that little thing! Fortunately for us, we were more short than fat, so at least we could fit in the shower. It's too bad it didn't come with a step stool or a bucket, as either of those would have lessened the time it took in order to rinse my long hair. Moving on to other things, we were able to sleep, and get a good start after our odd morning showers, and set out for the thriving metropolis of Tok, Alaska 300 miles north and west of Haines Junction, Yukon Territory.
Take care, and keep in touch,
Vered
...and Zev too
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