Sleeping onboard the ferry was quite pleasant. We both got a great night’s sleep, which was good, since we were awaken with a knock on the door at 4:15 am, and a soft voice telling us that we arrive in Ketchikan in a half hour. The last 24 hours aboard the Taku was very pleasant and very relaxing and a great way to travel. Driving ashore in Ketchikan at 5 am on a Sunday morning, we found the streets quite empty. Macdonald’s provided our breakfast before we cruised around the city, getting ourselves oriented with our home for the next two days. The scenery was spectacular, driving on the North Tongass Highway toward our reserved campsite, especially since the sun was shining, which is amazing in itself. Ketchikan is the wettest community in North America, receiving ... read more

It rained during the night, as we found out in the morning, as water poured off the tent when Dave opened the hatch. However, we never heard the rain during the night. We also noticed we were sitting on the floor of the van, with almost all the air gone out of the mattress, as we got out of the van. Not a good sign. By the time we had breakfast and were ready to go the skies were just cloudy and remained that way throughout the day. First order of business for the day is laundry. How fortunate we were, to find a Laundromat that wasn’t busy and had free wireless internet. Laundry done and two blogs sent, we began our tour of Sitka. Sitka National Historic Park is a wonderful source of information about ... read more

Our journey today is bringing us to the city of Juneau. Juneau, nestled into the foot of it’s namesake mountain, is the capital of Alaska and it is landlocked. You have to fly or take a boat into this city, but you would never know that by the number of cars and the 4 lane highways that it has, especially during rush hour. Juneau is a cruise ship port and there are four huge ships in the city docks today. The population of Juneau is around 32,000 people and it swells, like Skagway does, when they add 8-10,000 more people per day from the ships. The cruise ship docks are adjacent to the city street, and they dominate the waterfront and the view from just about everywhere. We took Thane Road, which goes south of the ... read more

After virtually no sleep for either one of us, we got up at 5 am, grabbed a cup of tea and a couple of breakfast bars and headed for the ferry. We are taking the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry to Juneau, with a stop in Haines along the way. We did not have any problems driving down the ramp and into the ship with the box on the back of the van. The ferry ride was smooth and nobody got sick (meaning me). There were glaciers and waterfalls interspersed in the mountainous landscape along this 5 ½ hour trek on the Inside Passage. Eldred Rock Light was one of the highlights of the trip. Dall Porpoises, Whales and Sea Otters were seen but since the ferry doesn’t stop or slow down for wildlife, I have no ... read more

Skagway is an enigma. There are so many wealthy people here, yet to look around, most of what you see looks like poverty. There is abandoned and unlived in property everywhere and about half the houses that are lived in are shacks or extremely rundown. A great number of the employees here for the summer are foreign students. Most employers provide “housing” for these employees, which is often a run-down trailer in a campground, and in some cases tents. Dave and I walked through several campgrounds in the city and we saw lots of permanent type tents (white canvas on a platform with a tarp over the top. We noticed that some of these “tenants” leave food remnants outside their tents and then people wonder why there are more bear sightings this year. We picked up ... read more