Some faces from the ferry

After a day of viewing the bears feeding at the Chilkoot fish weir and my surprise visit to Double D (and Anne), it was time to embark on the ferry to the "lower 48".  I stood there amazed at some of the campers that went into the hold from this entry point. One guy in a pick-up was towing a 40' camper and easily pulled into the bow and backed up to be situated mid-ship. It may have looked huge as it went down the ramp, but the ship swallowed it as if eating a grape. 

As I stood there with Tom,  Terry, Jim and "J" (Elondre), we were mostly concerned with the steel mesh "bridge" into the hold. Motorcycles have a tough time on slick wavy metal bridges like this. Sure, they are light and can span a chasm just as well as suspension, cable, truss or arched bridges but without a lot of the weight. They just aren't motorcycle friendly! Give me 1000 miles of dirt road over 200 ft of these spans - they just make me feel unsteady.

... Apparently I wasn't the only one with that thought... All four of the other guys (see bottom pic) road down the ramp with both feet dragging too:-) 

This is not what E.M. Forster had in mind when he wrote "A Room With A View", about a mother and daughter hoping for a room with a view of the Arno and ended up in a room with a view of the courtyard. I believe that Forster would have conceded that this view beats a view of the Arno on any day. He may have tried to sort out the "class system" of the boat by comparing the folks in "tent city" to those in the Solarium, on lounge chairs with blankets, to those in sleeping bags in the Theater room (or any other public place on the ship), to those in cabins. I personally think that we had the best of all worlds and would have been unhappy in a cabin (extremely unhappy in any of the other public places).

I caught Jeannine deep in thought right after she exited her tent. It seemed that morning that she was sleeping in while Max was sorting out breakfast for them. 

Must be breakfast time - he (I can't recall his name) kayaked around Alaska for a bit and is now working his way around Washington in it. 

(Left to right: Elondre - "J", Brenda and Brian from Flagstaff, AZ, and Terry from St Louis, MO)

Here we are at the bar... as if I would be able to pass up a bar on a boat that looks like a bar on a boat. Nice gold patterned wall paper!

Tent city filled up during those stops in Sitka, Juneau, Ketchikan (yes, the same Ketchikan of the "Bridge to Nowhere")  ... Here we are packing things up as we get close to Bellingham.

Jeannine, Max (from Berlin) and Paul (most recently of Cordova, AK)

Brian and Brenda (from Flagstaff, AZ) and Greg and ... I forgot her name (from Vancouver) - left to right.

Kim packing up... spent a summer in Ketchikan as a social worker. Headed back to Salt Lake City with Kelly (her husband).

Left to right: Terry, Jim (who bought his bike  - same bike - from BMW Denver from same guy I did), Tom (also "Tuck") and Elondre "J" (spent 18 months in Anaconda and is now taking his new Harley to see his kid in Virginia... or his parents in Miami. He isn't sure where his wind is blowing)

As I keep moving along on this trip, I haven't had a chance to get to know people as well as I did on the ferry. What a great time! Most of all, what great people! It seemed like a big camping trip (with movies and restaurants...)