Just Another Weekend

We woke up this spring morning earlier than our typical Saturday mornings. To our delight two large black bears were transiting our property. They never did come completely out of the brush for us to get a few pictures. We’re still hopeful one day soon we can capture a picture to post on our blog site. After a quick shower and breakfast we headed out the door for our trip north of town to help a friend with moving a freezer. Waiting for us in the driveway was the Hillside Gang looking forward to their usual treat. It was a beautiful spring morning drive as we headed north of town.
After arriving at our friends place we off-loaded the freezer and strapped it to a dolly for the long trek to her house. As you can tell by the photos the path to the house along the beach was overgrown with brush and a bit rocky. All three of us then wrestled the freezer down a few rocks to the creek bank. Then we carried it across the slippery rocks to the opposite side of the creek and finally up to its resting place on the porch.

Having built up a thirst the three of us headed into the house for a drink and conversation. During this time one of the two pet cats she owns kept us all company, his name is Grover. He is an older cat who loves to be held and hangs around for an occasional scratch behind the ears. As he was trying to get my attention I snap a picture of him. Also took a few photos of some antique bottles sitting on a window ledge recovered from a wreck dive as the light shone through them. Quite a beautiful day.
Once we finished our drinks our friend asked us to hold a ladder while she took some time to clean out the gutters. The gutters were full of leaves which were preventing the water tank from being filled up on a regular basis between rain storms. After a few minutes of raking out the leaves the water started flowing again to her water tank.

We ended up heading back to town afterwards, but along the way we stopped at North Shore Gardens to pick up some flowers and some food for my bird feeders. We then stopped at a the market to pcik up a few items for lunch and dinner. Once we got back to the cabin we both worked on a few projects around the house. Pat worked on potting her plants and baking a few pies for church. I worked on the pressure washer and hung up feeder for the squirrels. Then I spent about a hour or so working a pastel painting. All in all it was a very relaxing day.

Spring Time!

Couple of weeks ago I was pretty optimistic that winter was on its way out. Thus I put away the snow shovels and deicer knowing that spring was around the corner. A few more storms worked their way through the area last week but hung on to my optimism against the side ways rains. Well this past week pretty much confirmed that winter is gone as the sun was out all week. Greeting us down the driveway was the first buds of the ‘Lysichiton americanus’ better known as ‘skunk cabbage’. Its official…spring season has arrived in Ketchikan!

My wife and I did our usual weekend run to the landfill to drop off our accumulated garbage from the week and then head to town to take in the sights. We took advantage of some shopping at a local store located on the waterfront having a sale. There were quite a bit of people in town taking advantage of the weather as well.

On our way out of the parking lot for a walk around the neighborhood a trucked pulled in with three dogs in the back bed with not much room to roam. When ever another dog came by within sight the three would set off barking like crazy. It was quite funny to watch.

We then headed up a staircase to a boardwalk above the tunnel to get a view of the down town area. Patricia counted each step up the boarded stairway for which I believe she stated there was 118 steps. It’s a bit more than the number 40 steps leading up to our house.

Needless to say it was a beautiful view of the down town area once we reach the top step. We then decided to walk a bit further to another look out point with a view of the new wharf extension project for the cruise ships. Again well worth the walk up the steps and the hill.

Winding our way back down the hill through the Pine Street neighborhood we noticed that several people were out digging in their gardens or working on house repairs. Patricia wanted to walk over to the Ketchikan Library and I took advantage to check on the Ketchikan Creek. The spring run-off was in full boil coming down the chutes behind the library; which looks more impressive at low tide. By this time we were getting hungry so we decided wander over to the Salmon Landing Market Place to get a bite of lunch.

With our lunch to go we headed off to find a sunny spot to eat our lunch. Eventually our conversation turned to next week’s schedule. Our biggest agenda items were the last day of the AWANA kid’s ministry and scheduled car repairs for the Subaru Legacy. We then headed off back to the truck and decided to finish up with a grocery run to the supermarket.

We felt like tourist in our own town. Speaking of which the tourist season starts in full swing the first week of May. It was good for us to spend a day just hanging out in the sun; there are so few days like it in Ketchikan.