Eagles, airplanes, boats, and meeting Janet - Day 7, June 22

An eagle flew by the window this morning before I was even dressed. So I grabbed the camera and went out on the deck. This beautiful bird was perched high in a tree up the mountain.

He seems to just sit there and pose. I got several very nice shots of him. Great way to start the day.

I decided to go down by the water to watch for eagles and enjoy the traffic on the water. If you look really hard you can see what appears to be a log in the water just below the white house with a dark roof way in the distance. There are eagles sitting on it.

Zoomed in ...

...and zoomed in even more.



Turning away from the water, this is the view. If I zoom in...

...I find this eagle. I could hear him and had to look a bit to find him, but he was worth the search. He was "talking" to another eagle because I would see and hear him and then hear another seem to respond, but I couldn't find the other eagle.



Just to the right of the eagle and not zoomed in as much, here is the view. This is Deer Mountain cloaked in clouds in the background. I think most of the houses in Ketchikan can see the water as every row is just a bit higher up and can see over other homes. I don't know if the pictures I have shared give the true sense of how quickly the roads go up and the way this town is built. I hope so, because I think it is awesome. ... though walking up the hills is not so great...LOL

There is always a lot happening on the water...

Planes landing.  These are coming and going all the time. Three landed, one right after another. Many more landed in the time I was watching from this spot.

Now I am walking towards downtown. I get many views of the water between buildings. Many of the businesses built right on the water have decks out over the water, or docks so there are places to get a good view even with buildings all along the way.

This is a RAVEN...there are no crows in Alaska. There are lots of ravens, however. Raven is in many of the legends of the natives. He is known as The Trickster, he has a part in their creation legends. He is found on many of the totem poles.

Many of the buildings are built right out over the water. This is between two buildings.

The boats almost look like they are racing.

The view as I walk along the sidewalk towards downtown. The left side has houses, while there are businesses all along the right (water) side. It is a walk of about a mile and a half to get to the tunnel from our place. The tunnel signifies the start of "downtown." Even before the tunnel, though, there will be businesses on both sides of the street.

How would you like to carry groceries up THOSE steps? Actually, they do not have to. The next street up is behind the house, I think, so this is just for convenience to get to the street. I haven't actually been up behind these houses, but may do that someday when I get a surge of energy.

Not yet to the tunnel, though it is barely visible at the end of the street. Traffic going towards downtown goes around the tunnel to the right. Traffic is one way through the tunnel, coming towards us.

One more view of how the houses almost looked stacked on top of one another.



One of the cruise ships. This one is at berth 4. There can be as many as 4 ships in at one time.  Some days 5 will come in, but one has to leave before another is scheduled to dock. Notice the name "Radiance of the Seas."  I have noticed that many of the ships' names refer to their beauty or greatness on the seas. MANY others have Princess in their names.

This is looking over the edge into the water along a dock. Notice all the sea life clinging to the dock. Richard, isn't it awesome what this camera can capture? I spend a lot of time along the docks peering into the water and wondering what is lurking below the surface. I watch out onto the water as well.  I heard that a pod of killer whales was spotted right here in Ketchikan a week or two before we got here. So one never knows what one might see....so I keep watching. I don't think I could ever tire of watching the water.



Another treasure found!

There are a large variety of vessels in Ketchikan harbor. Here is a small sample ...

     

Here is a picture I thought you children might like...



Isn't he a beautiful dog?



Downtown Ketchikan - I just love this view with the snow-capped mountains in the background.

I decided to eat at this little place along the docks.

No, that is not my lunch! It was, however, displayed to tempt patrons and I did see many people eating these and the huge shrimp they also offered.  I had a simple meal of a piece of cod and fries for $4.75.

Not sure why I even took this picture as it is not a good view of the place I ate. However, it turned out to be a special picture to me. The lady had just sat down. I asked her where she was from. Answer: "Oregon." We started to talk as we ate and kept right on chatting. Then we went on a walk down Creek Street together. Her name is Janet.

We went into The Opal Shop where we met the owner, Andy. Andy does it all. He is part of all the steps it takes to get this beautiful jewelry into his shop. He does the mining in Australia - we saw pictures of him in the mines. He designs and makes the jewelry. Then spends his summers in this shop on Creek Street. Janet purchased a beautiful opal necklace.

Dolly's House is now a museum on Creek Street. Creek Street was once the red light district and Dolly was a long-time "resident." This is one of the "girls" inviting us to see the museum. ($5) We have not gone inside yet, but probably will one of these fine days.

Janet and I said, "Good-bye" as she had to get back on her cruise ship. I caught a green line bus for home.

We discovered this little church just UP the hill from us after we learned that the green line bus goes up the hill and stops a half block past our street, so we can walk down rather than up Carlanna Lake Rd. We plan to visit on Sunday.

Daniel - you mentioned how you loved those red flowers. Well, here they are in purple. They seem to come in lots of different colors.