I know I am about two or three days behind, we’ve been busy, OK.

We arrived in Ketchikan early Sunday morning. Three of those huge cruise ships got there before we did; those guys get to park about two blocks from downtown our ride had parking about two miles from downtown. I knew there was a reason we brought our own car. To you old salts, I know you don’t drive a boat or ship to town and park it, you take it to port and dock it, but it is my blog.

We found a downtown diner open, kind of a neat place a pretty good mix of local residents and early birds off the cruise ships. While waiting for a table we almost got in trouble; we were blocking access to the thing senior citizens sign so they don’t have to pay tax. We had a good breakfast, paid our tab and tax.

Ketchikan has some talented local Indian artists (I don’t remember the tribes) the downtown district was loaded with art shops, a pretty good mix of the good local stuff and some imported. I believe it came from China. I think a lot of this stuff leaves town on the cruise ships.

I remembered, from some of my research prior to the trip, Ketchikan and Totem Poles have a longstanding and harmonious relationship. We spent some time at a Totem Pole heritage center and two different parks. We both left with a better understanding and appreciation of the things.

We got off the beaten path a little bit, we left the tourists in town and went south. A few miles out of town but still on a paved road we started to cross a bridge over a small creek. We were greeted by about 15 or 20 Bald Eagles and a bunch of Salmon. The Salmon were making their way upstream and the Eagles were salivating over the thought of fresh Salmon for dinner. There were also some of the local residents with fishing gear with thoughts of Salmon for dinner.

Naturally, I had the wrong lens on my good camera, by the time I changed the lens the eagles had kind of dispersed. We watched the action for a while and were told by some f the locals that at low tide or about dark sometimes the black bears like to come and have Salmon for dinner.

We went back about dark (you knew we would), I guess the big bears weren’t hungry or maybe because the tide was in; for whatever reason we didn’t see bears having fish for dinner. We did have to stop and let a baby bear take a leisurely stroll across the road in front of us; and he stopped at the edge of the road and checked us out as we passed. He was a cute little guy.

The day in Ketchikan was a good,one and served as a reminder of why we wanted to come to Alaska.

God Bless, it is too early for Good Night.
Dave and Patty