Ketchikan Alaska
In Ketchikan it rains a
lot, or at least it is supposed to. I managed to be there during the longest drought in
history. I think they went 28 days without a raindrop. The scenery was pretty, but it
looked a lot drier than Juneau, even though it gets nearly 3 times the rainfall annually.
Before I headed to Ketchikan I bought a pair of waterproof hiking boots to tract in and
when I got there I bought a hat so that my head wouldn't always be soaked. We took them
off to be polite at doors, but always had them and our trench coats on when out in the
weather.
This is
Elliot Street. It consists of a long staircase and then a boardwalk. It hearkens back to
the days when the entire island was walking only and all of the roads were this way. Cars
were an after thought and there are still many homes with addresses on "streets"
that are simply walkways made of wood.
Float
planes are a common method of transportation here. When 2 of the missionaries went to one
of the local islands for 3 days to tract it out they had to fly on one of the
"commercial airlines" that flew such planes. The wide blue of the inside passage
and the greenery made it beautiful all the time.
Tracting
again. Here we checked to find that no one was home before posing for an "action
shot" knocking.
Hiking
again in the woods near our home. This one is still soon after I arrived and there is snow
and ice still covering parts of the falls.
