Aug 9-Aug 11

We got off the ferry in Prince Rupert at 5:30 a.m. Aug. 9. That's not a fun time to arrive. Eric and I took our time getting off the ferry and rode the two to three miles into town and settled on a place that advertised a cheap breakfast special. We sat there for two hours, lingering over coffee and eggs for a long time. Eric felt guilty, but I didn't. I used to be a waitress and as long as it wasn't busy, I never did mind people lingering for a few hours. As long as they tipped.

Eric had made a reservation on a float plane from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan for 4:30 p.m.. (US $220) So we had a whole day to kill. We walked around, sent a few packages home, sent some photos to Katy, and lingered in a coffee shop, where I read Richard Bach's Illusions in one sitting. While we were there some customer spotted a $1 bill in the tip jar and joked with the teen-age coffee shop worker, saying, WHO would leave an American dollar in a tip jar. The inference was, this is Prince Rupert, and Prince Rupert is at war with the U.S. over the fishing and ferry dispute, and what in the hell is that DOLLAR doing here? Which is ironic because the Canadians make quite a business out of getting U.S. dollars. Anyway, the kid said that some Americans left it, and his customer started going on and on about AMERICANS? Then the kid said they were nice Americans, and he guessed the only evil Americans were the fishermen. Eric and I kept a low profile during all this. We paid for our coffees with our last Canadian change.

We finally decided to ride over the airport early, so Eric could take the bikes apart for the plane ride. The guys on the airline had stressed how the bikes had to be very, very small to make the ride. So Eric took everything off. Racks, handlebars, pedals, parts I didn't even know existed. Then he used plastic ties to tie all the parts of each bike into one little mound of bike. When the plane arrived the bikes were quite small. Of course our bags were huge. The limit was supposed to be 40 pounds a person. We had about 75. At least. Luckily four of the eight passengers didn't show up for the flight so no one made a fuss about us being overweight.

The flight was awesome. We saw mountains and glaciers and of course lots of water. It was a blast but it was quite short.

We were relieved to be in Ketchikan, where we could use the U.S. money we had, and where we knew our ATM cards would always work. We weren't scheduled to get on the ferry to Juneau until the next morning, so we decided to wander around Ketchikan. While Eric reassembled the bikes I walked into the main part of town--a gauntlet of cheesy T-shirt and trinket shops, like SF's Fisherman's Wharf--and found an ATM. Then we went for a two-mile bike ride to Saxman, which is believed to be the largest concentration of totem poles in North America. The poles are mostly in one park. Some of them were pretty interesting. One of them showed a human at the bottom of a totem pole, eating the extended arm of a wooden figure a few feet away from the pole.

We liked Ketchikan even though it was quite cheesy. We walked up old Creek Street, a boardwalk of junk shops that had closed earlier in the day. The shops used to be brothels. Then we caught an incline up to the top of the hill. The Incline is like the one in Pittsburgh, except you don't have to pay. And to get it to pick you up, you just push a button that says "UP" like an elevator. At the top was a gorgeous lodge, which had more totem poles nearby.

By the time we headed for the campsite, it was after dark. We thought it couldn't be too bad of a ride and mostly it wasn't. But after several miles of road, we had to turn onto a really rough gravel road. It was pitch black and our maglites didn't help much, and we kept hitting such big rocks that we had to walk. We didn't know if we'd have to walk for miles or yards. It turned out it was fairly close. The camp host was right there to greet us, and send us to a spot. He also gave us some stove fuel that another bike tourist had left behind. That was great luck because we had thrown out all our stove fuel before getting on the float plane.

The next morning (Aug. 11), on the way to the ferry, Eric of course got a flat. Luckily he fixed it quickly and we made it with time to spare. While he stowed the bikes, I ran up to the back deck, and pitched our tent, among the tent city that our fellow passengers had set up days before back in Bellingham, Wash. We got a pretty primo spot out of the wind. It was great having a place to laze around on the ferry and nap. The hum of the engines and the rocking of the waves helped put us to sleep. We stayed up for quite awhile watching the water--amazing country. The ferry stopped in Wrangell and Petersburg on the way up. Each time we had less than an hour on shore, so we had to hustle. In Wrangell we had just enough time to find out all the grocery stores were closed and get some ice cream.

In Petersburg we had to run into town, which was nearly a mile from the ferry dock, and then run back. While we were there, we saw a little kid all dressed up in some Norwegian outfit. He was part of a dance troupe that was entertaining visitors from cruise ships. Eric and another guy got him to pose next to a wooden model of a Norse boat, so he did. We asked if he was Norwegian and he said he wasn't, though actually his grandfather is. He said he wouldn't do the dances if it weren't for the tourists. "We do their dances for them," he said. He seemed pretty sick of the tourists but not bitter.

We got back to the boat, lingered on deck awhile longer, and then slept well. To keep our tent from blowing away we had tied it to a railing with straps. Many of the other tents were fastened to the deck with duct tape. Some of them were pretty flimsy. A few of the ones that were closest to the back of the boat (we were about 10 feet in from the very back) started to blow away and had to be taken down. So we finally did get a view off the back of the boat from our tent but by then it was dark. The ferry was scheduled to land in Juneau at 4 a.m. so Eric set his watch for 3:30. Everyone whoever saw either me or Eric slide into work well after 9 a.m should note that we have discovered we are capable of getting up as early as 3:30 a.m.NEXT: We invade a stranger's home in Juneau.

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