Traveling Whartons: Drive to Haines and Visit

8/1

We drove to Haines, I cannot find enough words to describe the drive from Haines Junction to Haines. For 150 miles, scenic view after scenic view. We arrived at Haines and found a campground on the water. We had to boondock for 2 nights before a site with utilities was available. Eagles were flying around. Another gorgeous location for a campground.

Every hill and around every corner was another view

Our first fish wheel! Neat way to fish.

When we arived in Haines a small cruise ship was in the harbor

8/2

Today we went for a drive in search of bears, no problem 3 miles up the road everyone was out of their cars looking down onto Chilkoot River. There were 2 bears digging up clams(?) and just having a good time.

Coming back we saw some behavior from ducks that we had never seen before. The ducks would line up in a row, then some of them would circle and stir up the water, very quickly they would all dive. This must be some fishing technique that they have developed and works well for them.

We met a guy, Bear, who was a local and chatted with him for a while. He offered us a package of home-smoked salmon which was delicious. He was very interested in our full time life.

This is the boat we took to Juneau the next day

These are the ducks that are fishing

8/3

Today we found the same 2 bears happily digging and eating. Our one neighbor is from New Zealand so we had an interesting conversation. He is in awe of the scenery in Alaska, especially the road to Haines.

We took a drive and coming back heard, what we thought, was water bottle crinkling. We figures something had shifted in the back and a water bottle had moved. No. Our sunroof(tempered glass) had a hole in it. We don’t know if a bird dropped something on us or if a rock came down from the mountain. Now the sunroof is duct-taped together.

The big bird in the center is an eagle

8/4

We moved to our new site and our neighbors are from Houston, the 1960 area. Another nice conversation. Spent the day cleaning the MH, all the dust from the dirt roads just gets through all the little holes. Visited the IGA supermarket and found it was well stocked so we bought quite a bit. Laundry as usual.

8/5

Today we took a day trip to Juneau via the Catamaran. I had been trying to figure out what to fill up 5 hours in Juneau and wanted to visit Mendenhall Glacier. I thought we would need to rent a car as Uber and taxis are not allowed to drop off at the Glacier. I stumbled across a tour from downtown Juneau that lasted 2 ½ hours. Perfect. Left at 1 from downtown and came back around 3:30. We arrived in Juneau at 11:30 and departed again at 4.

A bus took us from the dock to downtown Juneau and he dropped us off at the tramway where our tour started. Picked up a quick lunch, found our tour guide(4 people were on the tour). We had a historical tour of Juneau, a visit to the Whale statue(really neat), a stop for a phenomenal view of Mendenhall Glacier and then an hour at the Glacier. Everything worked out as planned and she dropped us off by our bus for the ride back to the boat.

On the way back we stopped at Eldred Rock light house(it is for sale if anyone is interested) and found some porpoise, sea lions and whales. No breaching whales.