More Haines happiness

Here is the lovely house of Marnie and Greg. They are doing a great job of landscaping, and it is a joy to sit amongst flowers and gardens. Note the hard-working Marnie in the photo.

Also note the screw off Blain on their moped instead of helping. What a great little gitaround.

The weather isn't always like Colorado, they tell us. They get some snow in winter. This snow stake on Mt Rapinski tells all. Note the second photo of the top marker...

All that snowmelt does good things for the groundwater, and the mushrooms have been coming out en mass. This handsome birch bolete caught our eye.

Mt Rapinski was a major achievement for Blain. Broken leg kept the distance down on past hikes, but it held up great for this 3600 ft peak. I know our Colorado buddies will give us a hard time for the altitude, but keep in mind that we started from 5 ft. below sealevel.

And Mo was proud of him.

We're off!

Well we hit the open road.

Haines is beautiful. We are at Marnie and Greg's house on the hill overlooking the Wm. H. Seward Fort and (finally!) the water. Gorgeous.

Chance is enjoying the break from the car in a sunny spot on the carpet. The drive has been good. Only one speeding ticket in Alaska. Oops.
Like a dope, Blain actually passed the cop. He was in an unmarked SUV. Sneaky bastard. Don't worry, we didn't call him that. This helped us avoid jail time. The old adage lies. You really don't have to try everything once.

We were sad to leave our little house, but we know Laura will enjoy a wonderful home.

We said farewell to friends Petra and Grant at Snow City in downtown. Fueled by the hearty "Veggie Bypass" plate and hearty company, we sadly part. Great folk. And preggers. We vote for Blain for a boy, and Monique for a girl, in case they are reading this. But Chance is nice, too.

It was then off to Peter's to dump some stuff and say bye to Laura and the big guy. Sorry we missed you Tracie. But as you can see, they were happy to finally close the door on us and our leaving town "donations" and get to work. So get to work you two, and stop reading this time-waster...

The road is dry and sunny. Lots of frost-heaves, but no construction. Which is an Alaskan joke about having only two seasons up here - winter and road construction.

We hit the border past Tok, stocked up on Coffee Crisps (YES!), entered Canada, left Canada past Haines Junction, and entered Alaska again. It was a sunny drive to Haines. Next is a quick ferry ride to Skagway to knock 200 miles or so off the trip. Then back into Canada for the BIG drive down.

The snow is deep and fluffy. We tried to ski a bit and bogged down the dog in the powder. We're looking for packed tracks, but no real luck, yet.

Here's our photo of a caributt.