We awoke to the pitter patter of liquid sunshine. When asked "Does it always rain here?...Juneau
folks say "No, sometimes it snows".
To day is laundry and clean-up day. In about an hour we must leave for the ferry to Haines. Hulkia, my frend in Homer, says that Haines is the other place in Alaska that he would live so I'm looking forward to seeing it!
On the ferry we visited again with Uli and Giselle who I meet on the first ferry. They spent three days in Prince Rupert and then had a overnight berth on Taku to Haines. They will travel to Anchorage and then Homer so we may see them yet again.
The ferry was very crowded with cars coming from Prince Rupert, more coming on at Juneau and then some leaving at Haines and others going on to Skagway. The boat arrived in Haines about two hours late and we felt sorry for the folks trying to get to a wedding reception north of Skagway.
SATURDAY, MAY 30, 2009
Haines to Destruction Bay …Miles
This morning we had a brief time to look around Haines. Our goal was some smoked salmon but the shop was closed because there was a fishing derby going on somewhere nearby. The note on the door said the owner was down buying fish. Oh well, there will be plenty of other opportunities for smoked salmon on this trip.
The drive begins along the Chilkat River. Then we started climbing and it amazed me that 40 miles from Haines which is at sea level the trees were becoming stunted and sparse. I am used to having to go up to around 9000 feet for this kind of landscape. Today and tomorrow we are circumnavigating the St Elias Wilderness. The peaks are all snow covered and rise up to 19,000 ft.
Haines junction was our lunch stop.
We stopped at Soldier’s Summit where the North and South contingents of the Alaskan Highway met in late 1942 completing the permanent highway over 1525 miles from Dawson Creek, BC to Fairbanks, Alaska in eight months and 12 days.
Our destination was Cottonwood RV Park south of Destruction Bay overlooking Kluane Lake which is still covered with ice about two feet thick. We dined royally on leftover chicken, steamed veggies and wine with port for desert. It is so hard to go to bed before dark!
The folks that run the RV parks have quite an investment here in Alaska. The parks seem mostly family owned and there is a lot of pride involved. Warm and spotlessly clean bathrooms gain high marks especially those with hair dyers.
Bears can be a problem and there are in some places cages in which to put garbage that can sometimes defeat the humans trying to deposit garbage. The RV Park where we are now just asks you to take it all with you.
We met a German couple from Hamburg who flew from Frankfort to Whitehorse and rented a Pleasure Way Van from CanaDream.com which is just a little bigger than our Roadtrek. That would be the way to go if you don’t want to do the drive from the lower 48.
We dined royally on leftover chicken, steamed veggies and wine with port for desert. It is so hard to go to bed before dark!
folks say "No, sometimes it snows".
To day is laundry and clean-up day. In about an hour we must leave for the ferry to Haines. Hulkia, my frend in Homer, says that Haines is the other place in Alaska that he would live so I'm looking forward to seeing it!
On the ferry we visited again with Uli and Giselle who I meet on the first ferry. They spent three days in Prince Rupert and then had a overnight berth on Taku to Haines. They will travel to Anchorage and then Homer so we may see them yet again.
The ferry was very crowded with cars coming from Prince Rupert, more coming on at Juneau and then some leaving at Haines and others going on to Skagway. The boat arrived in Haines about two hours late and we felt sorry for the folks trying to get to a wedding reception north of Skagway.
SATURDAY, MAY 30, 2009
Haines to Destruction Bay …Miles
This morning we had a brief time to look around Haines. Our goal was some smoked salmon but the shop was closed because there was a fishing derby going on somewhere nearby. The note on the door said the owner was down buying fish. Oh well, there will be plenty of other opportunities for smoked salmon on this trip.
The drive begins along the Chilkat River. Then we started climbing and it amazed me that 40 miles from Haines which is at sea level the trees were becoming stunted and sparse. I am used to having to go up to around 9000 feet for this kind of landscape. Today and tomorrow we are circumnavigating the St Elias Wilderness. The peaks are all snow covered and rise up to 19,000 ft.
Haines junction was our lunch stop.
We stopped at Soldier’s Summit where the North and South contingents of the Alaskan Highway met in late 1942 completing the permanent highway over 1525 miles from Dawson Creek, BC to Fairbanks, Alaska in eight months and 12 days.
Our destination was Cottonwood RV Park south of Destruction Bay overlooking Kluane Lake which is still covered with ice about two feet thick. We dined royally on leftover chicken, steamed veggies and wine with port for desert. It is so hard to go to bed before dark!
The folks that run the RV parks have quite an investment here in Alaska. The parks seem mostly family owned and there is a lot of pride involved. Warm and spotlessly clean bathrooms gain high marks especially those with hair dyers.
Bears can be a problem and there are in some places cages in which to put garbage that can sometimes defeat the humans trying to deposit garbage. The RV Park where we are now just asks you to take it all with you.
We met a German couple from Hamburg who flew from Frankfort to Whitehorse and rented a Pleasure Way Van from CanaDream.com which is just a little bigger than our Roadtrek. That would be the way to go if you don’t want to do the drive from the lower 48.
We dined royally on leftover chicken, steamed veggies and wine with port for desert. It is so hard to go to bed before dark!
2 comments:
So, you met up with Hulkia?
No, I talked to him on the phone. We will see Hulkia and Judy on June5th in Homer.
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