Alaska Marine Highway

Tuesday, August 4th:  Ferry riding, Sitka Narrows, Old Town Sitka

We slept in until 8:00 am and enjoyed the morning watching the scenery.  We went through the Sitka Narrows, which are so narrow for our big boat.  Sometimes we were only 50 yards from shore.  We saw Orcas and Bears, but no pics.  We stopped at Sitka for 2 hours.  We took a quick walk up to Old Town Sitka.  Old Town is where the original Russian America Company (RAC) built their first fort.  It was burned to the ground by the Tlinglets.  They then moved to where Sitka is now and built Barnoff Castle (see info on Sitka page).  We enjoyed our sack lunch on the boat and met an artist from Rome doing watercolors.  I am going to buy one so I will post which one I get. We spent the afternoon in the Solarium. It is a large covered deck with infrared heat. This is where people set up their tents and sleep during the trip if they didn’t get a room.

The boat and how we get the cars in and out. The solarium is in the upper left - we hang out there most of the time.

The scenery is spectacular and the pictures do not do it justice. The mountain on the right below is called Devils Thum and rises over 9000 feet above sea level.

Wednesday, August 6th:  Ketchikan and Ferry Riding

We slept amazing last night – put in the ear plugs and to sleep we went.  We slept for almost 10 hours.  We got up and hit Ketchikan around 11:00 AM.  We woofed it 3 miles down to the Totem Pole Heritage Center to find out that we had to pay to see the poles.  We have seen many poles so we opted to go downtown.  We had a cocktail at the Totem Bar, took the public bus home and went out to lunch by the ferry dock.  Ketchikan is an interesting place as it is very long and skinny as the mountain is right behind the city.  We also got to see the fish hatchery.  We boarded the ship at 2:30 and set sail for Bellingham.  It was a nice day :)

FYI – AMH ship life is quite interesting.  You meet all sorts of people.  We have met many people from Wisconsin and Minnesota.  One family is moving to Kansas with her two kids, two horses, a dog and a cat.  The cat got lost, but was found :). It has a very community feel to it.

Thursday, August 7th - Chilling on the Ferry

Today was an amazing day - we did NOTHING! We camped out on the upper deck and enjoyed the sun. Mike watched people and looked for wildlife, I read my book. We did see some whales and porpoises, but no pictures.

That little tug boat in the upper right corner is hauling those containers to Ketchikan. The landscape reminded me of the boundary waters and the sunset was fabuous.

Friday, August 8th - Disembark the Ferry and drive to Banff (8.5 hours)

We disembarked the ferry around 8:00 am. Mike got off first and I was about 20 minutes behind. We hooked up the jeep and headed out to Banff. We crossed the border and made the 500 mile trek to Banff.

You may think this sounds crazy, but we were in traffic the entire time. We went through four national parks to get to Banff and the scenery was glorious. We drove through 11 Avalanche tunnels and one was completely covered with soil from an avalanche. We finally made it to Banff about 8:30 pm and I was driving. I am not sure what was up with Siri, but I drove the truck and jeep through downtown Banff with 1000 of my closes friends - hahahaha. We checked into our campground. The campground was run by the National Park and was just lovely.

The middle lower picture is our campground and the view of Randell Mountain in Banff - just gorgeous.

I have to say Thank You to Mike for making us take the Alaska Marine Highway home. It was just so great and we enjoyed every minute of it - and yes the food was so good :)