Ketchikan

Or should I say Kitsch-ikan. No that's just mean. It was absolutely the shopping port and we knew that so we saved most of our souvenir buying for this stop. Cheaper and a bigger selection. It was pretty honky tonk but it was an actual functional city much like Juneau. Tourism is big but it is really a fishing town. I was wise to choose the Alaskan Chef's Table as my activity for the day. Oh my. Deliciousness.

This was the final port and we had already been on vacation for a week together. Most of you faithful readers know that Michael and I don't get a lot of time together (understatement!) so we aren't used to being together every night and every day for such a stretch. We hadn't fought at all, but I'm a pretty firm believer that if you don't do something apart once in a while you run out of stuff to talk about. So in Ketchikan we went our separate ways. He went ziplining (shocker) and I went for a fish feast in town and did a little shopping.

The Alaskan chef's table was divine. Much of what you would expect form Alaskan cuisine, it was all fish. Crab legs (from the Wizard!) King white salmon which is absolutely delicious. I never

knew such a thing existed and the chef said he wasn't surprised. It is really difficult to get and extremely expensive. The chef was most impressive. He was ridiculously cute and his name was Ryan Hendricks. 24 years old and is just now starting formal chef's training. He has great talent and can make a sauce that would make my keyboard palatable. Seriously, remember this kid's name he'll be a reality star one day. He has the looks, charm and talent.

Michael's zipline tour was a bit disappointing but I'll leave him to tell you about that.

When we both returned we went up up and away in a sea plane to the Misty Fjords. Well at least we tried to. The plane tour was running late due to mechanical problems (yikes) and then once we finally did make it onto the plane the starter didn't work. Part of this tour is to water-land in the fjords and let us walk out onto the pontoons of the plane, like this:

That's me hanging on for dear life.

That's Michael not hanging on at all.

Now if the plane would have initially started then failed when we stopped in the middle of nowhere...well we would have missed our boat for sure. That would have SUCKED. well when the first plane didn't start we switched to another and took off. The following pictures are through the glass windows of a 6 passenger plane that was built in the 1950s (we found that out AFTER the flight)

When you say you're in the middle of nowhere and you're really just a couple of miles away from somewhere...I mean anything, you really are exaggerating. I have never felt so isolated as I have in the Misty Fjords and at the Hubbard Glacier. Even on a ship full of 5,000 people you felt small and insignificant. The same is true at the fjords. You were truly just out in no man's land. The expanse if Alaska is one of its marvels. It goes on and on and on.

Then we got back and saw this:

Aw yeah.