Alaskan Cruise Part 2: Ketchikan

We started our cruise in Vancouver, BC and spent the first afternoon and the entire next day cruising up the coast.  For the most part it was pretty smooth sailing, and there was lots to do onboard, but we were still excited to get off the ship in Ketchikan for our first glimpse of Alaska.

It was chilly and there was a pretty constant drizzle while we were there, which is typically not ideal vacation weather.  But it was so refreshing to see all the lush vegetation and to be able to walk around without feeling like you might die of heat exhaustion.  And since we are currently in the midst of a wicked drought in our neck of the woods, even the rain was a welcome sight.  The ship docked early and we rolled ashore around nine and immediately hit the first tourist trap we passed to buy some warm hats before traipsing past a dozen obnoxious cruise owned jewelry stores to find some beer and crab legs.   It might have been nine thirty.  Don't judge. There's no judging on vacation.

We hit up the Crab Cracker Seafood Bar for a crab feast and some Alaskan Ambers.  Its just a little counter and some tables tucked away in the corner of a tourist trap type store.  The service was slow, and it was pretty pricey but the beer was cold and the King crab legs were delicious.  So delicious, in fact, that we totally forgot that we got salmon, halibut, and fries to go with it.  If we find ourselves back there again someday, I think we will forgo all the rest and just get like five pounds of king crab.  And beer, obviously.

And then, because I am basically the most awesome wife on the planet (and because I had every intention of dragging him to every knitting store in Alaska) we spent a little time at the local taxidermy shop checking out all the dead things.  Unfortunately there are signs expressly forbidding taking pictures wearing the dead things.  Fun haters.

At this point it was still only like 11 am and we had a whole day to kill so we did what any self respecting tourist would do and we bought ourselves some tickets to the Lumberjack Show.  Did you know that there are actually colleges with timber sports teams?  No? Me neither... but they tell me its true. 

It was entertaining and killed an hour or two.  And we saved ourselves some money by just wandering up to the show and buying a ticket rather than booking it as an excursion through the cruise (which I have discovered is a rather overrated and overpriced way of doing things).

After that we spent the rest of the day just wandering around town checking out the shops and the scenery before heading back to the boat.

I'm not really sure how I would feel about having to carry all my groceries up that many stairs.  But I suppose the amazing view from your front door might make it worth it.  

Its also kind of awesome how these little seaplanes are a totally commonplace mode of transportation.  They come and go on the water as often, if not more often than boats.  Its like a regular highway down the waterways.

This is the Aleutian Ballad, which was a commercial crab boat that appeared on Deadliest Catch fairly early on in the show.  Now the boat has been revamped to do excursions for tourists.  We didn't go on it, but caught a glimpse from deck of the Radiance.

And this was our last view of Ketchikan from the (strangely tinted) windows of the Schooner Bar as we pulled out of port.