Valley of the Eagles

Wow, it feels like forever since I last blogged! I wish they had internet on the ferry, it was a lot of sitting around time that made me want to be productive! Instead, I read and played a lot of solitaire.

I obviously have a lot of photos from the trip down the coast (though not as many as I'd hoped. It was pouring rain the whole ride down, so going out on deck to snap pictures was not very appealing...). First, though, I have photos from my brief stay in Haines! I stayed in a nice campground right on the edge of the bay, next to the harbor. It was a really pretty day so Little Bit and I went over to the harbor and walked around on the docks. The owner of the campground said that there was a storm blowing in, so it was the last nice day for a while. Boy was she right, the storm must've hit the entire northwest coast because I haven't seen anything but clouds and rain since then!

jacket/empyre via zumiez :: top/billabong via pacsun :: jeans/pacsun :: moccasins/minnetonka :: scarf/from Tieka

We got into Haines on Wednesday afternoon and immediately went to the ferry terminal to figure out passage down the coast. Ferries to Bellingham were booked and it looked like a hassle to try and go standby. Plus, the only boat to Bellingham left on Monday, which meant that I would be hanging out in Haines for a bit, so I went back into town to find a Campground. My trusty Woodalls led me to Oceanside RV Park, which was indeed oceanside! I got 5 nights there and got set to make a my little home in Haines for a bit. I realized that evening that I could possibly hitch the ferry to Prince Rupert instead of Bellingham and just drive the rest of the way to Washington, so the next morning I refunded the rest of my stay at Oceanside and ran back to the ferry terminal to see if I could get on the Prince Rupert boat. I ended up getting a reservation from Juneau to Prince Rupert, which meant I had to make it on Standby from Haines to Juneau. Nerve-wracking waiting to find out if I made it on the Haines-Juneau boat! I did end up making it, though, which worked out absolutely perfectly!

In between my morning visit to the ferry terminal and my subsequent ferry ride, I drove up the road a bit to Chilkoot Lake state recreation area to see what that was all about. It was gorgeous. It was a little late in the season, but there were a few people fishing the river, and the lake was so placid and beautiful, nestled among the huge, southeast evergreens. They had a state campground there too, and I was kind of bummed that I didn't get to stay another night because the campground was on the shores on the lake and looked incredibly fun and relaxing. I loved being in town at Oceanside (mainly because I got to have internet for a night and update everything), but if I could go back I think I probably would've stayed up at Chilkoot Lake.

While Bits and I were walking the docks we found this boat, which I had to take a picture of, for (hopefully) obvious reasons. I always knew my name was a good boat name. All good boat names have either Anne or Marie somewhere in there. When I commercial fished in Bristol Bay it was almost comical how many boat names included those two. There was one called the Ann Marie, actually! Haha.