Our new friends suggested a place where we should stop for lunch, but that was the only thing on our itinerary for the day. We wandered around downtown, and moved out a bit past the touristy shops and found a bit of the Juneau flavor.
The town is built right on the base of several mountains, and it turns out that it's actually built on rubble from the gold mines in the area. The main downtown streets are fairly flat, but people live up on the sides of the mountains. The only way to get home is:
up all those stairs!
We wanted to take the tram up to the top of Mount Rodgers, but it was very foggy and misty, so we didn't think we'd be able to see anything. Instead, we stayed on the ground, and took in the mountains from there.
As we walked around town, we learned that the town is serious about keeping bears away from garbage. The garbage cans are very difficult to for people to open, which I guess means that bears have a hard time, too. The box next to Orlando that looks like a newspaper vending machine is actually a trash can.
After a couple of hours of wandering around town, we were getting hungry and Anastasia was tired enough to fall asleep in her stroller. We made our way to the crab shack we'd been told about, and I stopped at the creperie that was two shacks down.
Orlando got a t-shirt that says "Tracy gave me crabs" and he and Myney shared this:
Meanwhile, Anastasia looked like this:
After lunch, it was time to make our way back to the ship for our trip to Ketchikan. Annie took us to the bar so she could bust a move before dinner.
We arrived in Ketchikan early the next morning, to very rainy skies. We decided that we'd take a look at some tours before deciding what we wanted to do, and in the end decided that Dolly's Museum on Creek Street was the best option for us.
Creek Street, was an easy walk from the ship, on the opposite side of the creek that runs through the town. This is a walking street that's really more like a boardwalk and is lined with wooden houses that used to make up the red light district of this old mining town.
When we got to the creek, we to watch the salmon swimming for a little while, and got to see two seals eating at the "all you can eat salmon buffet" and such a glut of salmon that it was almost possible to walk across the creek on their backs.
As we walked down Creek Street, we found some really cute artist studios and shops. This town is a really funky artist community. The people there were wonderful and fun. It didn't take long for us to decide that this was our favorite ports on the whole cruise.
At the end of Creek Street is Dolly's. Dolly's Museum is the only house that remains as it was when Dolly was working out of the house as a lady of the evening. It was a really fascinating tour through a bit of history. Dolly was a resourceful woman whose house was an interesting place to visit. The tour guide said she charged $3, and wouldn't go to bed till she'd made $75-$100 in an evening. Wow, is all I can say.
After leaving Dolly's, we walked back through town and stopped at Ketchi-Candies to pick up some treats for ourselves and an box of candies to bring back to DC with us.
After leaving Ketchikan, it was time to get ready for our second formal night. Anastasia was contentedly sleeping with Marilee in her and Myney's room.
And we went down to have a cocktail before our dinner. We made a dapper group, and enjoyed a very relaxed evening that included a Baked Alaska Parade.
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