Day 71, Sitka

We went into Sitka about 10am and had breakfast at a Roma Restaurant.  A strange combination but they serve among other things, pizza and breakfast all day long.  It was a good breakfast.  We came back to the RVs and dropped Gary off.  He is still not over the walking Pneumonia.  He still has a bad cough but doesn’t want to go see another doctor yet.  Today is a rainy day and he didn’t feel like being out in it.  Since it is the weekend he would probably have to go to the emergency room if he gets worse.

Mattie, Twila, and I went back into town and did a little more looking around and shopping.  I took this picture of the Old Pioneer’s Home in Sitka.  It is a retirement home for Alaskan’s that are over 65 years old.  We didn’t go inside but it really looked well kept from the outside.  The Milepost said that there are Old Pioneer Homes in Fairbanks, Palmer, Anchorage, Ketchikan and Juneau, and are all state supported.

 

They had a statue of an old gold prospector out in the front yard.  It is supposed to be modeled after Skagway Bill Fonda.

Again, being a rainy day I thought these pictures of some flowers might be nice.

Day 70, Sitka

We have just reached what I think will be our high temperature for the day.  63F.  This is the view looking through the windshield of our motor home.

We are only a block from the Ferry Terminal.  We drove up Harbor Mountain today.  This is a road that was originally built by the army in 1942 to a remote radar site on top of the mountain.  The road is 5.6 miles from the main road to the top and is accessed using the Harbor Mountain Cutoff Road.  It is a paved road for about 1/2 mile, then it turns into a gravel road and at 1.7 miles turns into a narrow twisting steep road going up the mountain.  It doesn’t qualify as a 4 wheel road though, in fact a car could do it if it has decent clearance.  There were several places to take pictures of the bay coming into Sitka.  Unfortunately I didn’t take them on the way up and the mist/clouds moved in before we started back.  I got some but they weren’t nearly as good as they would have been on the way up and were much lower on the mountain.

We found what we thought was the foundation for the radar site but we weren’t sure.  The actual site has been torn down.

  

This is a picture of St Michael Cathedral which is in the middle of the main shopping area.  It was here first although this isn’t the original church.  The first one burn down in 1966 and was re-built on the same location.  It was originally built in 1844 – 1848.  Sitka was the capitol city when Russia owned Alaska.

Got this picture of fishing boats in the front and a cruise ship out in the bay.  I thought it was a good contrast.

Those of you that own small boats might get a kick out of this picture of a small boat “Alaska Style”.

Would you call it a cabin cruiser?

Day 69, Sitka, Alaska

The alarm went off at 5am this morning and we left the campground by 5:30am headed for the Ferry Terminal.  Got there about 5:50am and sat for at least an hour and a half waiting to get loaded.  Today was a much smaller ferry than the first one but it was much faster.  It was a twin hull catamaran and they said it cruised at about 32 knots per hour.  I don’t exactly how many mph that would be but I think it would be 25 to 27 mph.  We got into Sitka about 1:30pm and were sitting in the RV park before 2pm.  The RV Park is call the Sitka Sportsman’s Association RV Park.  They have water and 30 amp electricity with a dump station available when we leave.  We paid for 4 nights at $22 plus tax per night for a total of $93.28.  The parking spaces are pretty tight for rigs the size of Gary’s and ours but will do what we need them to do.

Thought you might need a little perspective on where we are now.  The top map shows Sitka as the bottom pin cushion and Juneau as the top pin cushion and then Anchorage is shown on the map.  The bottom map just shows more details of the numerous islands that are along the southeastern coast of Alaska.

We went into the town of Sitka which is about 6 miles from our campground around 5:30pm and looked things over as a preliminary plan as to what we want to see.  We were surprised at how modern Sitka really is.  Sitka and the surrounding area have a population of about 8000.  There were 2 cruise ships in the harbor when we got there and the downtown area was fairly busy.  I will post some pictures of the downtown area over the next few days.

We did take a road southeast of town to the Saw Mill Creek Campground and then up the mountain to Blue Lake.  The campground is nowhere you would want to take an RV.  It is pretty much a tent campground but the lake was pretty.  The lake has a hydroelectric plant that supplies the electric for the city.

Day 68, Juneau

Today will be our last full day in Juneau.  Tomorrow morning we have to be at the ferry terminal at 6am and the ferry is scheduled to leave at 8am for Sitka, Alaska.  Sitka is a small town on an Island so I don’t know what if any internet coverage I will find there.  Hopefully I will at least find an internet cafe or maybe the public library to get online.  We will be in Sitka for 4 nights before moving on to Petersburg.

Today we are just being lazy.  We may drive down one of the few roads that goes north out of Juneau for maybe 30 miles but if we do it will be afternoon.

As I said in yesterday blog, I will talk about some of the things we did yesterday in today’s entry.

Yesterday morning we went by McDonalds for breakfast and then drove out about another 10 miles north to the “Shrine of St. Therese”.  It is owned by the Catholic Church and even has Mass during the summer months.  The church itself was rather plain on the inside but the building and the outside area were really pretty.  It was such a peaceful setting.

There was a young Bald Eagle perched in a tree just over our heads maybe 15 feet that didn’t seem to worry about us at all.  In case you don’t know, Bald Eagles don’t gain their mature look until they are at least 2 years old.  Up until that time they look like this.

 

When we left the Shrine we went to the Dog Sledding that I talked about yesterday.  We then went downtown and picked up complimentary tickets to the Mt Roberts Tram.  It is sure good to have good friends.  The tram goes from right on the main street of Juneau up to the 1800 foot platform on mount Roberts.  This gives you a really spectacular view of Juneau.

That is a rather large cruise ship in the picture so you can tell we are up in the air.

To finish a really busy day we went to a salmon, halibut, and rib buffet at a restaurant south of Juneau about 3 miles.  Gary, Mattie, Twila, and I picked up the tab for Drew, the man that got us all the freebies, and his wife Tanya.  Hope I got the spelling right.  Didn’t take my camera so no picture.

Day 67, Juneau

Wow!!  Today was a busy day.  Mattie’s son had a friend from college that lives in Juneau and he is the director of port activities for the cruise ships that are in the bay daily.  He got us complimentary tickets for the helicopter tour to Mendenhall Glacier and the sled dog teams.  They fly you to the glacier and land on top of it.  There are about 240 dogs with sleds that are camped out on the glacier all the time in the summer.  They put 3 people and the dog handler to a team of 8 to 10 dogs and take you on about a 2 mile trip across the glacier.  It is amazing how fast the dogs pull the sleds.  I was in the back of the helicopter so I couldn’t get the best pictures but I at least got some.

  

Twila and I had to ride in different helicopters.  She’s in this one and we are following it.  We did get to ride on the same sled however and Twila got to ride in front.

The dog handlers actually live on the glacier in tents.  They said the temperature dropped 40 degrees as soon as the sun dropped below the mountains.  Our driver, Matt, said it wasn’t a problem for them that they were used to it.  He was 19 years old and said he had been behind a sled since he was 1 year old.  He had 30 dogs up on the ice this summer and he said he and his parents owned 63 dogs.

 

This is another sled but you can see that it is actually 2 sleds.  On our sled, Matt was running the front sled and I and another man were able to take turns on the back of the last sled just like you would if you were really operating the sled.  I could see how you could really get into sledding in the winter and of course in the small towns, sledding and snowmobiling is the only way to get around most of the time in the winter.

We also took the tram ride up a mountain in downtown Juneau and a trip out to the Shrine of St Therese but I will talk about that tomorrow.  I will just put some pictures taken from the air.  They had to be taken through the glass so some have a little glare but I hope you enjoy them.

Day 66, Juneau

We went to breakfast this morning at Mickey D’s.  It had been a while since we have been around a McDonalds and it was really good.  We then moved the RVs from Fred Meyers to the Mendenhall Glacier Campground.  It is a National Forest Service Campground so we got a discount on the fees.  Not a lot however.  They only gave us a 50% discount on the basic camping fee which was $10.  The fee for water, electric, and sewer is $18 with no discount.  We still got full hookup for $23 a day with 50 amp electric.  Not bad, especially for Alaska.  The sites are nice, large and level and surrounded by trees.

We drove out to the Mendenhall Glacier this morning.  We had been to it before back in 2007 when we took the cruise ship up the inside passage.  I will post a picture from each time just to show the difference.  I have seen a lot of glaciers but never before one with this color of blue.

Just to show the size of the glacier, this picture was taken about a mile a way.

Twila and I got our obligatory picture and the second one is from 2007 with Gary and Mattie.

 

A couple of months makes a big difference in the heaviness of the coat needed.

There is a waterfall that dumps into the lake to the right of the glacier.  To show how big it is, look at the people standing in front of it.  By the way, I found out some of you might not know that if you want to see the picture better, click on it and it will open up larger in a different window.

Day 65, Juneau, Alaska

I set the alarm this morning for 6:30am.  I don’t normally set an alarm let alone for 6:30 but the ferry was scheduled to leave at 9am and we didn’t know how long it would take to load the vehicles.

Other cars and a few RV’s started arriving about 7am.  The ferry arrived from Skagway about 8:15am and they started loading about 8:35am.  They loaded Gary’s rig, then one other RV before loading the motor home.  It took a bit of maneuvering to get into position.  We went down the ramp and pulled the front towards the far side, then we had to back up moving the front towards the side closest to the ramp.  This took a couple of forward and backwards to get us headed towards the back of the ship.  When we got to the back we had to do a U turn heading toward the front of the ship so that we were in position to drive out when we got to Juneau.  I took this picture of cars being load after we got on the ship.

 

I got a good shot of Haines from the ship as we were leaving.

We arrived in Juneau about 1:30pm.

We are parked at the Fred Meyers Store in Juneau for the night.  We plan on moving to the Mendenhall Glacier Campground tomorrow.  For those of you that might be interested, the cost of the trip from Haines to Juneau on the ferry was a total of $433 for Twila and I and the motor home.  It was $37 for each of us and $359 for the motor home.  The motor home is figured at 42 feet long and is over wide due to the mirrors which are 9 foot apart.  The motor home is charged at $5.69 per foot with a 50% sur charge for the width so it is about $8.55 per foot.  A smaller less wide RV would be much less.  Unfortunately my mirrors won’t fold in like most mirrors.

Day 64, Haines Ferry Terminal

Today was nice.  We moved from Oceanside RV to a roadside pullout on the road to the ferry. 

We checked in with the ferry about 7:30pm and got our lane assignment for tomorrow’s ferry and found out we could stay overnight at the ferry as long as we arrived after 8:30pm which was the time the evening ferry left and the office shut down for the night.  We pulled into the lot about 9:30pm.  We only put out the slide at the head of our bed which gave us a little more room in the bedroom.

Day 63, Haines, Alaska

Today was messy, it has rained all day and the outside temperature has be in the 50’s all day long.  We went out for lunch and then drove out to the Chilkat State Park which is 7 miles south of Haines on Mud Flats Road.  It is shown in my Trailer Life CD to have pull through sites 15 x 50.  The road is terrible.  I wouldn’t want to take my motor home out there and the sites are not level.  It is $10 a night with no hook ups.  Our dry camp the first night was a much better site.

Tonight is our next to last night in Haines.  Saturday night we will park at the Ferry Terminal so this may be my last posting until we get to Juneau Sunday evening.

With all the rainy weather we are having I decided to put some pictures of some of the flowers we have seen in Alaska.  These are pictures of columbines.

  

I feel much better now.

Day 62, Haines, Alaska

We moved down to the Oceanside RV Park today.  On the way down I stopped at the NAPA store and filled up with diesel again.  I don’t plan on buying any more fuel until we have left Prince Rupert, Canada heading for Washington, USA.  I put in 55.87 gallons at $3.659 per gallon.  I was surprised it was that much cheaper than Tok which was $3.899.  The total was $205.50.  I had driven 438 miles so I got 7.8 mpg with 3 nights of dry camping and running the generator.  We had a lot of downhill coming into Haines.  We have now driven 5,812 since we left from my son’s house at Cushing, Oklahoma.  We won’t be putting on many miles now until we get to Prince Rupert.

Looks like I will have to go to the Library to get a Wi-Fi signal here.  My Sprint card has been totally worthless most of the time in Alaska.

This is the view just outside our motor home.

This is looking back over the RVs and the town to the mountains.

Day 61, Haines, Alaska

We are camped at a pull out 4.3 miles from Haines.  We have a reservation for 2 nights at the Oceanside RV Park in Haines starting tomorrow.  The park, as the name implies is right on the waterfront overlooking the bay.  We went ahead and paid for the sites today.  I had to pay $5 per night more since my rig was over 38 ft.  Gary squeezed by at 37 ft.  The cost for 2 nights with tax was $70.56.  I don’t know why my spot is $5 more since we are parked right next to each other and have the exact same hookup.  Twila said “just because they can”.

We went out to the ferry terminal today and picked up our tickets for all the trips we will be making on the ferries.  We found out we could park overnight in the loading lanes for the ferry after 8:30pm on Saturday night.  The ferry leaves and the office closes at 8:30.

We passed through Haines Junction on our way down today.  We stopped at a local restaurant and had breakfast and took some pictures of their tourist display at the intersection of the Alaska Highway and the Haines Highway.  A little bit “Hokey” but nicely done.

 

Day 60, Rest Stop 3 again

We left our dry camp this morning at a little before 9am.  We left an hour earlier than our normal departure time because we knew we had to go through Canadian Customs and we had the worst stretch of road on the whole trip except maybe the road to Deadhorse at Prudhoe Bay and we didn’t take the RVs over that.  If you check the blog for June the 10th, you will read the account of this stretch of road on the trip up.  I don’t think the road maintenance crews have even touched it.  Today was the same song, second verse.  As on the trip up we are again parked next to Lake Kluane.  It is a nice level gravel area with beautiful scenery.  This is the same place we parked on June the 9th on the trip up.  Tomorrow we should arrive in Haines, Alaska.

Day 59, Rest Stop 4 again

We left Grizzly Lake RV this morning about 9:30am.  We were planning on stopping at the Grumpy Grizz in Tok for breakfast.  When we came through there June the 10th and 11th, we ate breakfast there a couple of times and not only was it good but they had free coffee and breakfast could be ordered anytime.  We got there about 11:20am only to discover they now stopped breakfast at 11am.  Bummer!  We really were ready for breakfast.  We survived and had lunch instead.  After lunch we filled up with diesel at the station next door to the Grumpy Grizz.  We had gone 535 miles since filling up and I put 76.97 gallons in so I got 6.95 mpg with 3 days of dry camping at Valdez.  The diesel was $3.899 per gallon so it cost me $300.10 to fill up.  This should get me to Haines where we will fill up before getting on the ferry.

We pulled out of Tok and headed towards the Canadian Border on the Alaskan Highway again.  We stopped at the same place we had spent the night on June the 10th.  It is a nice level loop off the highway with some picnic tables and a fire grill.  It was one of our prettier days so we decided to cook some smoked sausages over the fire.  We also had some canned chili we had brought from home and Mattie made some potatoes wedges.  About 6:30pm we moved into Gary and Mattie’s trailer to play cards and then had cherry pie and coffee for dessert.  Rough duty, but we can handle it.  I took this picture right after we had eaten and cleared the table.

Looking back I don’t think I reported on what if cost us to dry camp right on the bay in Valdez.  It was $12 a day so the 3 days only cost us $36 plus diesel to run the generator.

Day 58, Grizzly Lake RV

Since today was a traveling day I didn’t expect to have much to talk about however that changed when we drove by the hatchery this morning on the way out.  There right in the middle of the stream into the hatchery was a momma grizzly bear with 3 cubs.  We had to pull the RVs over to the side of the road and luckily didn’t get a ticket but we did get some good pictures.  I took a bunch but will only post these three.

We also figured out what the fishing boats were doing parked in the bay all night.  They had been restricted from fishing in the bay due to the salmon spawning and this morning was the first day they were allowed to fish.  They sat in the bay all night so that they could start fishing at 6 am.  They had huge nets that they strung out using a smaller boat to spread the nets.  They had a limit, I have no idea what it was, and they took their catch to a larger boat for weighing after they emptied each net.  Whenever the fleet got close to the limit allowed, they were given a time when they had to quit.  I guess we were lucky to have been there on the day they could fish.

We are now at the Grizzly Lake RV park, it is at milepost 53 on Highway 1 heading toward Tok, Alaska.  Remember I said in an earlier blog that we would have to come back through Tok on our way to Haines, Alaska.  This is what you would call a bare bones campground.  No water, no electric, and no sewer.  You are allowed to use their bathrooms and fill up your RV with water but if you dump it is an extra $5.00.  They do have free WiFi included.  The price?  $13.00 a night.