WASHINGTON- Seattle

August 4 Saturday A beautiful, sunny day and we were excited to visit Chris, Annette and their two children Cameron and Michael. Chris is Gary's second cousin and he lived with us while going to Cortland State. We hadn't seen him in about 10 years! We drove out to their house around 10:30 am and met the little ones for the first time. Cameron is five and Michael is almost three, both very adorable. We told Chris we would like to see Pikes Place Market which is a famous marketplace in downtown Seattle. We would never have been able to navigate here ourselves. Also, the Seattle Sea Fair was going on this weekend so traffic was very busy! As we followed Chris and Annette over the floating bridge we were entertained by acrobatic planes  flying overhead. They were part of the fair entertainment. Tje Blue Angels were also part of the fair. Once we got to a parking garage we rode the monorail to the market area. This whole area; the monorail, space needle etc., is celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Seattle World's Fair. Pikes Place Market is amazing. This is the place where the famous fish market throw takes place. Also, the Athenian Restaurant is here....which is featured in the movie “Sleepless in Seattle”. There are so many vendors it was impossible to take it all in! Also, outside of the Market is the original Starbucks! The whole area is full of street musicians, parks, shops and, of course, people. There was one cruise ship in port so that was probably part of it, but Chris says it is pretty busy there weekends....less so during the week. 

Following Chris & Annette over the floating bridge

Acrobatic plane

Two acrobatic planes

Chris, Michael, Cameron & Annette

Cameron & Michael meeting Mr. Skunk at lunch

Pikes Place Market

Fish throwing....the flying fish is in the upper left

So many beautiful flowers...only $5/bouquet!

Restaurant in "Sleepless in Seattle"

Musicians in front of the original Starbucks

Blue Angels flying over us at the market place

WASHINGTON – Seattle

August 3 Friday Got on the road a little later today as Gary decided to reinstall the fog lights. Didn't take long and after about a 2 hour drive we were at the US border! Today is a Canadian holiday so traffic was heavy on route 5. The drive was beautiful up and down the mountains. 

Beautiful view

Approaching an avalanche tunnel

 

The line was pretty long at the border but we only had to wait about a half hour and we had no problems at the crossing. Back in the lower 48!! Cell phone service again! A few miles from the border crossing we saw a cornfield and realized we hadn't seen one all summer!! Seattle was crazy busy as we drove in on I-5 about 3:30pm. Traffic was slow but we finally made it to the KOA in Kent which is about 15 miles from the center of Seattle. We had a view of Mt. Ranier as we drove on I-5 but it was a hazy around the mountain so it wasn't well defined. Beautiful day though, such a blue sky and Puget Sound was a deep blue. Staying at the Seattle-Kent KOA tonight.

Lots of traffic!

And more traffic!

View of the Space Needle

Mt. Rainier

CANADA – Merritt

August 2 Thursday Woke up to another beautiful day and started our drive from Prince George on Rt. 97 in British Columbia. We had only driven about 45 minutes when our travel was abruptly interrupted. We were traveling about 65 mph on a two lane highway and a pick up truck was traveling in the oncoming lane...as he passed us a 4X8 sheet of plywood flew out of his truck and hit us hard on our left front side right under the windshield. It made a terrible noise, like a shotgun blast, and we pulled off the road. The headlight assembly was completely smashed out onto the road, the fog lights were dangling, and the left front and side were damaged. Gary cut off the dangling fog lights and duct taped the left front turning signal as best as he could...it still worked and after our initial shock we headed to the next town, Quesnel, to report the accident. We don't think the truck driver even realized that he had lost that sheet of plywood. We had a lot to be thankful for...the RV seemed mechanically fine and we weren't hurt. We called our insurance company after we had the police report and continued on our journey after a delay of about 1.5 hours. I have to admit that we both were shaken up a bit. We had hoped to make it to Hope, British Columbia but only made it to Merritt, which is about an hour and half above Hope. Merritt is the country music capital of Canada! But, we didn't do any sightseeing here. We found a nice campground called Moon Shadows and settled in for the night.

RV at the Bee Lazee RV Park

RV after being hit by the plywood

Damaged :(   At least the duct tape matches our color scheme

CANADA – Prince Rupert / Prince George

July 31 Tuesday Arrived in Prince Rupert, British Columbia about 10am. We had reservations at the Prince Rupert RV Park which is only about a quarter mile from the port. First we had to go through Canadian customs. This will be the last time this trip that we will enter Canada. We have about 1,000 miles to drive to reach Seattle, Washington. We were tired from the ferry trip the night before, so we just crashed for a few hours and looked forward to being back on the road again in the morning. We won't do much except drive to the lower 48 in the next three days. Canada is expensive and we have turned off our cell phones as it is way too expensive to use them here. We did take a drive through Prince Rupert to see the town before heading back to the RV for dinner and bed. It rained heavily most of the night, but had let up by morning. 

Mural in Prince Rupert

Another neat mural in Prince Rupert

August 1 Wednesday We left the RV park about 8:30am and headed east on route 16. It was a nice drive, sunny most of the way and we even hit temperatures of 68 degrees as we approached Prince George. The road was good and we had some pretty views on the drive. As we drove into Prince George we saw two rainbows. We turned onto route 97 about 6pm and found an RV park, Bee Lazee RV Park,  about 20 minutes from Prince George. We got the last spot, which was a good thing as Gary had been driving 10 hours! It seems nice to be on the road again after spending more than a week of riding the ferry.

Pretty view on our ride from Prince Rupert to Prince George

Train tracks were on the side of the road for a lot of our drive

Lots of logs!

Mr. Skunk basking in the sun  It was 68 degrees --hot for us!! Note he has a shadow!

Rain shower rainbow as we headed into Prince George

ALASKA – Ketchikan day two

July 30 Monday Not such a rainy day as yesterday. We headed out to Saxman Totem Park...we were looking for Nathan Jackson who we had heard about from our John Holod Alaska DVD which had been the inspiration for this trip. It was our lucky day! Nathan was there. While there, he invited us into his studio. We felt very privileged to visit with him as he was working. Nathan Jackson is an American artist. He is among the most important living Tlingit artists and the most important Alaskan artists. He is best known for his totem poles, but works in a variety of media. He has created more than 50 totem poles, some of which are on display in the National Museum of the American Indian, Not only did he invite us in, but he introduced us to his son who is currently a student at Columbia University in NY and is continuing the tradition of a Tlingit carver. When a cruise ship tour showed up, before they came in, Nathan told us and a young man who had brought him a king salmon from his day of fishing, that the three of us could stay after the tour left. The whole encounter was very special and one of the highlights of our trip. 

Nathan Jackson, Tlingit totem carver

We drove out to Herring Cove. We had heard that the bears gathered there in the evening and we were hoping to see some. We weren't disappointed! We saw about 6 brown bears in the creek. Gary got some good pictures. Also, got more pictures of bald eagles. My goodness, Alaska is full of bald eagles!

The three bears

Mama bear

Eagle coming in for a landing

  

Eagles grow on trees in Alaska

Driving back into town we caught sight of these sea planes “paralleled” parked at the dock! If you live on the Inside Passage, you need a sea plane or a boat to get around.  A ferry passenger from Wrangell on the ferry told us that there is 2.5 boats per household.

How would you like to parallel park one of these on your driver's test?

We had to catch our ferry, Matanuska, at 2:30am. We went back to the RV and packed for the night on the ferry. Hard to believe that when we get on this ship we will be saying good-bye to Alaska. Next stop Canada...our trip home is beginning.

1am ferry loading --- Good-bye Alaska :(

Sailboat seem from our ferry

 

ALASKA- SITKA/KETCHIKAN

July 27 Friday Very rainy day. Didn't do much today except the laundry and catching up on correspondence. We have a long ferry trip to Ketchikan early in the morning.

July 28 Saturday Up at 3:30am to be at the ferry by 4:30am – our ferry, Taku, leaves at 5:45am. We knew several other Rvers who were taking this ferry also. Most of them were going to Petersburg which was a 12 hour ferry ride, but we were headed to Ketchikan, a 24 hour ride. We decided to get a stateroom for this leg of our trip so we could sleep when nightfall came. The ride was enjoyable...lots of visiting and viewing. We saw several whales, but it was difficult to capture a good picture – they move quickly...about 35miles per hour and our ship was only going about 20 miles an hour. Someone would yell “Whale” and we would all run to the windows with binoculars and cameras in hand. 

In line for the 5:30am ferry

Fishing boats headed out

Watching for whales

There's a whale!

Sea lions on  a buoy as we are heading into Petersburg

Sea planes and another seal

Eagle welcoming committee

After we stopped at Petersburg, we traveled through the Wrangell Narrows. This is very narrow part of the inside passage where you travel within 50-100 ft. of the shoreline on each side. It's a tortuous path with many rocks...the ship goes very slowly through here ---one of the crew stands at the bow of the ship through this area watching for dangers. The path is well marked with buoys, kind of like a slalom course! We made it through it smoothly. We arrived in Ketchikan around 5am.

Beautiful sunset in Wrangell Narrows

Islands in the distance

5:00am arrival in Ketchikan

We were only going to stay in Ketchikan for 2 nights, so we just pulled into the Walmart parking lot and asked their permission to park there. They were fine with that. It was rainy, but Ketchikan is noted for rain, so we didn't let that stand in the way. We headed downtown to see the the sights.

Rain gauge in Ketchikan- over 200 inches per year

Creek Street - original red light district

These cruise ships still amaze me...in downtown Ketchikan there were 5 ships in port and they are parked right next to the street of this small town! The paper runs a schedule of the cruise ships for the week...this was the current week's schedule: Saturday 3 ships 2,842 people; Sunday 5 ships 7,744 people; Monday 4 ships 8,428 people; Tuesday 2 ships 3,866 people; Wednesday 2 ships 2,284 people; Thursday 5 ships 8,9645 people; Friday 5 ships 9,516 people. AMAZING! Within a week's time this port, population of 8,050 sees 43,644 people pass through!

Cruise ship right next to the parking lot!

The rain let up a bit while we were visiting Totem Bight which is a site on the National Register of Historic Places. It has a Tlingit clan house and 15 totem poles in the Tongass Rain forest in Ketchikan.

Tlingit Clan house

Rain forest regrowth -- new tree taking root on top of old tree

ALASKA- Sitka day two

July 26 Thursday The Tlingit have lived continuously in Stika for over 50 centuries. We visited the Sitka National Historical Park (known as Totem Park by the locals) and the adjacent Sitka Cultural Center this morning. Here, totems carved by the masterful hands of the Tlingit and Haida Indians can be seen along a pathway that meanders through the rainforest. We went on a guided walk with a young park ranger who is a member of the Tlingit tribe. Very beautiful and very interesting. This is also the place where the Russians attacked the Tlingit in 1804. There are 12 Totems on the walk. 

Tlingit Potlach (ceremonial gathering) early 1900's

Beautiful path through Totem walk

Totem pole on the walk- Totems often told family history

Memorial totem usually for a tribal leader- burial urn  was placed in the bottom of pole

 

We also visited the Russian Bishop's House which is another site in the Sitka National Historical Park. The first Russian Bishiop in Sitka was known as Bishop Innocent and earned the respect of the Tlingit people converting many to the Russian Orthodox Religion. 

Russian Bishop's House

Also saw Saint Michael's Catherdral which was a Russian Orthodox Church built in 1844-48. It burned to the ground in January 1966. Many of the icons & religious objects were salvaged & are in the rebuilt structure.

St. Michael's Cathedral at the end of Main Street

We will be up early in the morning to catch the 5:45am ferry. We will travel to Ketchikan which is a 24 hour trip! This will be our last stop in Alaska-- can you believe it? The next ferry will take us to Prince Rupert, Canada and we will head to Washington – should take about 3 days from there and we will be back in the lower 48!!