Day 63 – Moored in Ketchikan

Beth and I got up this morning at 4:30AM to drive out to the hatchery again to see if there are more bears. First stop – Starbucks (yes they have Starbucks here in Ketchikan) for a tall latte. At the hatchery, our efforts were rewarded as there were gobs of eagles on shore and in the surrounding trees, constantly chattering and repositioning. Soon the black bear came out and made his appearance as well. He chased around the few salmon swimming in the creek, gave us lots of photo ops, then moseyed back into the brush and disappeared. Later that morning we all drove out to the Totem Heritage Center where they have preserved a large number of unrestored totem poles from the 19^th century. At one time there were hundreds of totem poles in Southeast Alaska but many villages were assumed abandoned and the totem poles were scavenged by transient explorers and tourists. Many were just outright stolen from the villages, so the tribe elders collectively decided to rescue the remaining poles for historical purposes and they are stored here. We also visited the Saxman Totem Park and stopped in at a couple of native american art galleries again. Dropperts left on the 3:45PM flight back to Seattle and now we are back to 2 onboard again. We are staying in Ketchikan until Monday morning so that I have a chance to call the doc regarding my hip. It is looking like the trip will be cut short somewhat as my hip is just in such poor shape that we are expediting hip replacement possibly as early as August 8^th. More on that later! The sunny weather is on its way out, the clouds and cooler temps have returned. Dinner tonight was at Ocean View restaurant, a Mexican-Italian-Greek restaurant which actually turned out to be very good. We both had giant margaritas and fajitas.