South to Haines

 When we started south out of Fairbanks, it began to feel like we were heading home.  And then, looking at a map, it struck us just how far from home we were. So, we shifted back to thinking in terms of that day's goal and not some larger view.  Panic attack averted.  

 The Alaska Highway, built mostly by Black soldiers in 1942, comes to an end south of Fairbanks. 

 One of the last original roadhouses, complete with period correct furnishings and personal belongings: it was not difficult to imagine how these people lived and the hardships they endured.

 You never know who is along the side of the road!

 River beds throughout Alaska are wide and accommodate glacial and snow pack runoff.

 Haines Junction, Yukon Territory,  is a real cross roads if I ever saw one.  Pick!  Haines, Alaska,   is south and leads to the ferry.  The Alaska Highway is north and leads to the border.West and you go to Whitehorse.  Nothing is close, no roads are good, and the hills and mountains are still snow covered.  Gas up now! It is well over a hundred miles in each direction to the next pump.

 At Million Dollar Falls on the Haines Jct to Haines road.

Haines has a fair and the set for the movie, Call of the Wild

 A detail of an old Totum.

The Hammer Museum at Haines.

An Alaskan after a few supplies in Haines.

Raven feature prominently in the lives and art of Alaskans

The Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau

 The official greeter at the docks in Sitka.

 Some art work in lovely town of Sitka.  Find this little town on a map.  Out of the way but vibrant and full of history, native, Russian, and Alaskan.

 This was a shot I took from the ferry with my zoom lens.  Enlarge it and those fuzzy images turn into critters.

View from the ferry on the Inside Passage headed out of Sitka

Sunset, June 21st off the back of the ferry

Lingering sunset. . .on the year's longest day.  At this point, we are two more full days north of Bellingham, Washington.  The ferry ride is interesting, the people are of all walks of life and from all over the world, and the staff is amazingly in love with their jobs.  We boarded the ferry in Haines, got off for a day in Juneau, boarded a second ferry and had brief stops in Sitka and Ketchikan.  On the two boats for about four days!