Haines, Ak., July 22-24

Hi everyone.  What a wonderful stay we had in Valdez, but you already heard that.  We started out for Haines Friday morning and drove the Richardson Highway.  We passed a lot of the sights we saw on the way down and enjoyed them just as much.  We stopped at a neat roadside spot around 5:30.  We get pretty tired after travelling all day.  We started out early Sat. morning on the Alaskan highway and went through customs into Canada again.  We have to do that in order to go to Haines.  If you look at a map you would see why.  We went through a little bit of the Yukon Territories and then British Columbia.  Then through customs again to Haines, Ak.  The road to Haines was gravel for 25 miles.  We now have a total of 5 windshield cracks on the motorhome and 5 on our Jeep and counting.  We are a long way from home.  It was beautiful driving to Haines with a mountain range that is breathtaking!  A different landscape altogether.  Beautiful Chilkat River was running all the way to Haines.  We stopped at an Eagle Preserve which is known as the Valley of Eagles.  Since time immemorial, bald eagles have gathered along the Chilkat River by the thousands.  Historically, the gathering of eagles, concentrated mostly within the Council Grounds, is at its peak in mid-November when up to 3,500 or more bald eagles have been counted.  We only saw a couple but I think they were all at the beach in Ninilchek when we camped on the beach.  That was awesome!  Haines is a quaint little fishing town.  We found a camp right on the beach.  It was lovely!  The weather was less than desirable so we took the car and did most of our sightseeing that way.  We heard about a bear sighting on the river and drove there twice but no luck.  We have seen plenty of bears in Valdez.  We had a nice stay in Haines, the heart of the Chilkat Valley, the historic capital of Tlingit Indian culture, the site of a frontier Gold Rush and home of Alaska's first prominent Army base. Tomorrow we headed for Skagway on the ferry.  Good night loved ones.