Sincerely, Denise

THOM’S PLACE TO WRANGELL

Monday, June 8^th

Today is a relatively short run up to Wrangell all on very inside waters, protected and calm. It’s a gorgeous morning even with light rain. The reflections are stunning! It is so hard to stay asleep when it gets light at 4am, it’s always a tug between having the portholes open so we have the fresh air vs. covering them to keep out the light so we can sleep later! The water was smooth today and we easily got into Heritage Harbor in Wrangell which is a first come first served moorage, no reservations. We are just ahead of most people traveling to Alaska this year, mainly because we take an aggressive approach to getting up here, long running days until we get across Cape Caution, and this year we had to outrun weather all the way past Dixon Entrance. Now we are at the point where we don’t have to do that as often and can enjoy shorter run days and a more leisurely pace as we enjoy the beauty of Alaska.

We had a super fun afternoon exploring the town of Wrangell, which is about a mile walk from the harbor, and walks are welcome when we are otherwise too sedentary. The boys had some marine and hardware items to track down, and we had some shops to investigate. Being Monday, a lot of places were closed, but we managed to find some souvenir sweatshirts and other things. Of course we found time for a stop at the local watering hole, Rayme’s Bar, where we chatted with a lot of locals quizzing us on our journey and welcoming us to their town. Everyone is so friendly here! Connie and I wandered off to the grocery store later on and bought more than intended so were each weighed down with two heavy bags of groceries. We decided to hitchhike back to the harbor and after several rejections, a nice young lady picked us up and got us to the harbor. She was born and raised locally, working as a tour guide part time and the rest of the time in her family’s fishing business, crab, salmon, etc. Again, such a sweetheart and so friendly. Tonight we don’t have to cook! Yay! We got to go out to dinner at the “Stik” or Stikine Inn for dinner and this time instead of walking we took the tender over to the city dock right below the Stik and enjoyed a wonderful meal, their menu is outstanding. Our server Krissy was just delightful and made our dinner so fun. We finished off with their signature dessert which is a family style mud pie creation that was over the top. And no, I haven’t set foot on the scale yet, scared. Going forth there will be no scale reports either.