July 19, Haines to Juneau

The saga continues…will the mail be here or not??? Last trip to the Post Office this morning to see if our mail has arrived---no luck! They have been very helpful and are going to forward it, if it ever shows up, to either Richey’s in Tacoma or back to Iowa so it will be there when we get home. Might as well just left it there in the first place. Hope there isn’t anything important in there. The ferry was to leave Haines at 1:45 but was running 2 hours late because of a caravan of 5th wheels unloading in Skagway. We finally got loaded and underway at 4:00 p.m. What started out as a beautiful cloudless day turned into a rainy day by the time we were half way to Juneau. The ferry was very nice, like a cruise ship without the swimming pool (almost). There was lots of room to roam, nice roomy seating areas, a good bar and cafeteria, it was an enjoyable experience. We unhooked the Jeep from the MH to load and Sandi drove the Jeep in. She was the first one to load and I was the last and it was a piece of cake. Drove down the ramp, turned a little to the left, and shut it off. My worst fears were realized however when we got to Juneau. Instead to driving out I had to back out of the ferry and all the way up the mile long ramp. It wasn’t really a mile long, only about 200 feet, but it seemed like a mile when it’s narrow and the mirrors are covered with raindrops. I did a great job though and didn’t hit a thing. It was about 9:00 p.m. when we docked and we found a state park 10 miles north of town to park for the night, still raining of course. We thought we were in trouble when we got to the campground. Narrow tree-lined winding road with no place to turn around and we just kept getting deeper and deeper into the woods. Finally found a clearing and a place to park. I think it will be a good place to leave the MH for a couple of days while we go to Sitka. Nobody could find it here.