After breakfast, the four of us decided to hit the streets of Ketchikan.  It was a very pleasant morning as far as the weather goes, with not a rain cloud in sight.  The bulk of the passengers who were getting off the ship to explore Ketchikan had already done so by the time we descended the gangway.

With no specific plan we just wandered from shop to shop.  We found the typical tourist fare to be had, souvenir cups, coffee mugs, Ulu knives, post cards and then some interesting art.  Since river otters and I have such a unique relationship from our ongoing lovefest with each other, I found that if I wanted to drop around $1,300, I could bring back home a stuffed river otter AND a salmon.  Hard to pass up such a great piece of Alaskan art, but I feel like I’m not that far from being able to stuff one on my own in Elger Bay on Camano Island!

We wandered through Creek Street, a boardwalk community that for 100 years served as the red light district “on the other side of the creek” with over 30 active brothels at one time during the gold rush years.  Two hours of this aimless type of shopping had me exhausted.  I just love shopping without any real purpose!

Anyway, we then switched and started a search for food.  We found a hole in the wall “fish and chips” place named Alava’s that had outstanding halibut and chips.  We moseyed back onboard ship and participated in a wine tasting event that was going on.  Soon underway, the Captain announced over the intercom that we were headed to Juneau but that in a few hours we would encounter heavy seas and there might be a little rock’n and roll’n going on.  After dinner sure enough, we began experiencing some pretty good swaying.  It wasn’t the swaying that anyone minded, it was the shuddering and sound of metal being stressed that was the most fun.  Even with all of that, sleep came easily and it was off to dreamland.