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Jeff

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We crossed the border into Canada this morning at Sumas, WA and are spending a couple of days in Harrison Hot Springs, BC. After years of wishing since our trip in 2007 we are headed north again.


This trip will be a bit different as we are going to hop on and off The Alaskan Ferry System starting at Prince Rupert BC with 3 day stops at Ketchikan, Wrangell, Juneau, Skagway, and a final ferry destination of Haines before continuing our drive north.


We are traveling with Helen Harmon,  a friend from Washington who had planned an RV trip up here with her husband who died from a tragic accident shortly after her retirement. She has downsized to a Class C and always said she would love to go with us if we returned so here we go!


Helen has a friend Joanne traveling with her and the four of us will be joined by our daughter Jami and her family in Anchorage at the end of the month. They will be with us for six days and then our two granddaughters Emily and Kate will stay with us for another 11 days before flying back to Hawaii.


We are really excited!

 
Sounds like a wonderful trip Jeff. Safe travels.
 
A trip like that is on our bucket list. Will be anxious to see some photos.
Have a safe trip with no hiccups.
Wish I could have been a stowaway.
 
I'm suffering a huge case of envy.  We loved our trip in 2000 and always intended to return.  Never happened.  Will look forward to your trip reports.
 
    Jeff and Sue, enjoy your trip, and the company.  It will certainly be different from a trip down east to Maine.  Donna and I are jealous, as that has always been on our bucket list, but given the distance from NS and limited timing in the US, it just hasn't move to the top of our list.
    Again, enjoy and keep safe.

Ed
 
I'll bet they're having too much fun to report in!  ;) ;D

ArdraF
 
We have been busy but drove up through British Columbia to Prince Rupert on great roads, boarded the Alaskan Marine Highway System (AMHS) Sunday for a six hour sail to Ketchikan.


We spent a great three days there including some fishing and departed last night for Wrangell for a real change from the crowds of cruise ship passengers at Ketchikan. I will try to cover a little more detail as we head further up the Inside Passage.
 
We had great weather at Prince Rupert and stayed at the Prince Rupert RV Park just up the hill from the Alaskan Marine Highway System (AMHS) terminal. We sailed last Saturday for Ketchikan aboard the ferry Matanuska, the first of five legs we will be aboard. We arrived in Ketchikan around 5:00PM and proceeded to the Clover Pass Resort, a fishing resort with a motel and about 30 full hookup RV sites about 15 miles north of Ketchikan. Clover Pass offers boat rentals, fishing, whale watching, and touring charters, a small store, and fish processing. Its friendly staff was very helpful and accommodating. We were lucky enough to get one of eight sites facing the water with a beautiful view out our windshield.


Judy and I rented a boat for a day of Halibut fishing and managed to get our limit of two fish each which meant dinner of grilled Halibut that was delicious.


Ketchikan is a community of 8,000 permanent residents who are invaded by 6000-10,000 cruise ship passengers every day of the season. The ships pull in by 8:00AM and have all departed by 3:00PM each afternoon. They spend the day touring Ketchikan, flying seaplane tours of the area, taking whale watching our fishing charters, checking out the Totems all over Ketchikan, and of course buying over priced jewelry and Alaska artifact. By 3:00PM Ketchikan is a ghost town where you can walk into any restaurant and be seated immediately. We were here on a cruise in 2004 and at that time our ship was docked at the only dock and one more was anchored and ferried their passengers ashore. Now there are 3-5 ships tied up to the new docks each day.

 

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Glad to hear from you! I'd love to take that ferry system with our motorhome. I got Alaska's promotional material sent to me last year, and it had a lot of info on the ferry system. On a sad note, I see that a tour plane out of Ketchikan just crashed today with nine lives lost. Tragic. Thanks for the update! (and the pics)

Kev

 
We spent Tuesday afternoon and evening parked at the AMHS terminal at Ketchikan and toured the town after the cruise ships departed. While parked we met several members of a Chautauqua touring group from the NW US that were touring most of the Inloand Passage towns. They are  in Wrangell with us and we plan to see the show.

We arrived in Wrangell at 5:15AM just in time to see our two weeks of beautiful weather turn to rain which is forecast on and off for the next three days. We drove a mile or so through town to the Alaskan Waters RV park where our sites were available as we and one other 5th wheel who were on the ferry with us were the only occupants in the eight site park.

Wrangell couldn't be more different from Ketchikan. It is a small community of 2,000 with fishing and lumber based industry. Everyone is extremely friendly qand you cannot enter a store or restaurant without getting engaged in a conversation. We had lunch at  local tent supporting their local Queen contest, spent a couple of hours at the  Nolan Museum which is a beautiful facility celebrating the local history going back to the first native settlements through today.

We stopped in a hardware store today, met one the the Chautauqua group and were invited to a seafood pot luck tonight where we were told to not bring anything as there was always too much food. Dinner was great with a great evening of talking to more tour members and local residents.
 

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Great photos Jeff.  Is the 2:30 AM sunrise an early start or late evening?  When I was in Stockholm years ago, I remember the very short nights.  It's strange to finish dinner at 10:00 PM in a relatively dark restaurant and then walk out to a street with what looks like late afternoon sun. 
 
Gary the sunrise is on the ferry to Wrangell between naps. We departed at 11:15PM just before dusk and the  Sun remained just below the horizon, coming back up at 2:30. It did get fairly dark which it will not do by the time we get to Farbanks in a a few weeks.
 

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