Day 16- Haines to the MV Columbia

home sweet home til' friday

haines from the boat

the MV Columbia (the ferry)

pink salmon

Day 16 Haines getting on the boat-
Sorry these are late- no service on the Columbia

We woke up to yet another awesome view of the harbor.... Beautiful skies. Jolie did laundry and I woke up to shower and get out of the room. Made some calls home and then to lunch/breakfast and find Internet. Cruised to a park where I had seen bears catching spawning fish in their mouths years ago. Nothing! Kinda let down but we are early. Checked out the ship as it came in and got signed in.

Went back to town and got some coffee and some Alaskan Amber beers and headed for a turn out in the road and rearranged the car and packed for the boat. Since we are camping on the deck we packed all the camping gear and just a small bag for clothes.

Met a really cool guy from Montana who was fishing and hung out. Grabbed some drift wood and cool rocks and stuff and headed to the ferry. We had our selected lanes to be in. Met and talked to a lot of people with similar stories of travel and tales of bumpy roads and great wildlife.

Boarded the ship and got put on an elevator and lifted into another car parking lot. Real cool.... like a modern marvel type show.

Scampered around to put a tent up on the back of the boat and went inside and asked the purser if there were any rooms available. We tried to get one at reservation time a couple weeks before, but there were none.

After a couple hours we got one..... It was a four bunk room, and cost a lot, but we were ready to have a new home for a few days. Off to bed where I would sleep for almost 12 hours.

-Sam


Day 16 cont. -
We spent most of today piddling around in Haines, AK, waiting for the ferry, so that we could begin our decent back to the lower 48. First thing this afternoon, after a nice greasy bacon cheeseburger for lunch, we drove out to the ferry dock and checked in (got our tickets and lane assignments) and then headed back out to piddle.
After looking in all the shops and going to the grocery and having lunch, we still had like 4 hours to kill. SO, we went and got coffee and then went to the rest area to rearrange and consolidate our bags to make it easier to carry our things onto the ferry. I was soo excited to have a fresh cup of good coffee, and within 10 minutes of having it, i spilt it everywhere. Oh, well!!
We had to be at the ferry station at 7:15 to get in line and the boat was scheduled to leave port at 9:15 (we were about 30 minutes late leaving). When we first drove on to the ferry, this guy said "you might have to go on the elevator," and we were both like...Ok, whatever...Then, no sh** we pulled onto this giant elevator- still in the truck, and got hoisted up to the upper car deck. Very weird feeling.
So, we've known since we bought our tickets, that there weren't any cabins available. We had planned for this and brought our tent on- it's really cool, because they have some covered area for people to set up their tents, or they have lawn chairs in the covered and heated solarium that you an sleep on.
Although we were physically prepared to camp, mentally, we had already decided, that if we could get a room and get good sleep for 4 nights then that would be amazing. So, we started hoping that someone would cancel. All i know is thank goodness i'm with sam- you know good things happen to good people- because after hours of waiting and sam stalking the purser and giving her chocolate (we knew this trick thanks to a very nice man from Dayton, Ohio), we got a room. YEY!!! We each have our own bunk bed all the way to bellingham.

-Jolie