May 27 and May 28--Haines to Sitka

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Friday, May 27th starting mileage 8550 50 degrees. Mud Bay outside of Haines, AK

Left early on the ferry to Juneau after parking Rosie II in the free, short term, overnight parking area of the terminal. The first couple of hours were really pretty with lots of waterfalls along the way. The look of the area is like what you see of pictures of the fjords in Norway, thickly forested mountains that come right down to the water with no real shore but maybe a few rocks. Very few places can you build anything on, so you have miles and miles of emptiness. Valerie saw a killer whale. We landed out of Juneau in Auke Bay and called the motel for a ride. They picked us up and we called it a night.

Valerie walked 3-4 blocks to a small store for something to go with our previously-prepared steelhead trout sandwiches and dessert before bed.

Saturday, May 28th Juneau, AK

Spent most of the day riding the ferry from Juneau to Sitka. Sitka is on the ocean and is rarely visited by the large cruise ships because they would have to go out into the open ocean to get there. Our ferry slowly threaded its way around and through many islands to get to Skagway from the “backside” if you will.

We got reservations at a Super 8 and took a taxi to get into town. After a nap, we walked downtown to find a place to eat. The town has 2 stop lights and 13 miles of road. We asked people for suggestions as to a good place to eat and were directed to the Larkspur Café. It really was more of a pub and served pub type food, but we managed to find something to eat. As we were finishing up they had a jazz combo that began playing. They were fairly good.

We then walked around and looked at various buildings and through a couple of open shops; the Pioneer Home [old folks home], St Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church that dominates the center of town, a Russian blockhouse, and a mural. That was the extent of our energy and it had started to rain so walked back to the motel.

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