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Published: September 4th 2009
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As I predicted, I slept through our port visit at Ketchikan. Actually I didn’t SLEEP through it; I just stayed in bed. Docking in port and numerous announcements over the P.A. made sure that I wasn’t going to sleep.
Back at sea, I woke up just before sunrise and saw partly cloudy skies. I dressed quickly and ran out on deck to get a few sunrise photos and then went to the cafeteria for some really good biscuits and gravy.
Late morning we arrived in Wrangell, a very small Alaskan town that, like many others, cannot be reached by road. You can only get here by ferry or plane. We had about 90 minutes in port, so I walked into town for a short visit. I had a nice conversation with a lady in a gift shop who boasted (and rightfully so) that Wrangell has no crime, no vandalism, no drug problems and that people routinely leave their cars and houses unlocked. She said that if one of the children in town does anything wrong, an adult will immediately call the child’s home and let them know what happened. Most of the time the news reaches home before the
child does. She said that the parents love their system and, of course, the kids hate it.
Wrangell is such a highly socialized community that, some years ago, the U.S. Postal Service wanted to implement home delivery of mail (rather than have people collect their mail at the post office). The townspeople put it to a vote and ended up rejecting the idea; they PREFERRED to continue going to the post office to get their mail.
It’s been mostly sunny this morning and for the past 12 hours I’ve been in what is normally the wettest part of Alaska (except for today!). I know that my good weather streak can’t last forever, but so far the whole trip has been fantastic!
Had several humpback whale sightings this afternoon but they weren’t close enough to get a good picture. Still fun to watch though.
Stopped in Petersburg for about an hour; only enough time to get off the ferry and roam around for a little bit.
Met two brothers from Ohio (one from Cleveland and one from Cincinnati). The Cleveland brother is 69 years old and still working while the Cincinnati brother is 78 years old
and retired at age 52 from his job as a private pilot for Proctor and Gamble. Neither brother looked his age and I learned that the two of them like to travel together (without anyone else along). The younger brother is married and the older brother is living with his ex-wife (there’s an interesting story here but I won’t go into it!).
Starting to see LOTS of mountains with glaciers and/or perpetual snow fields; just like Alaska should be.
It remained mostly sunny all day and the seas have been absolutely flat for the entire trip. Amazing!
While having dinner in the cafeteria tonight, someone shouted “ICEBERG!” and I had a brief “Titanic moment”. But then I saw that the iceberg was about the size of a Toyota Corolla and was several hundred yards away and I figured that I was probably going to be OK.
Went to bed around 10:00 and was rudely awakened about 11:30 with announcements that we were about to arrive in Juneau. I hadn’t planned to visit Juneau (due to the midnight arrival and the fact that we’d only be in port for about an hour) but since I was now
wide awake, I decided to go visit Juneau anyway, even if only for an hour. I got dressed, got off the ship, walked through the ferry terminal, went to the highway and found a sign that said “Juneau - 12 miles”. Balderdash! I didn’t know that the ferry terminal was that far from the city! So, retraced my steps and back to bed.
Early tomorrow morning we’ll have a short stopover in Haines and an hour later we’ll arrive at the ferry’s (and my) final destination of Skagway.
Stay tuned!
Jack
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