May 12 - Ketchikan

We arrived at Ketchikan on Monday, boy was it cold! Here is Tom, on our way to buy him an Alaska hat to keep his ears warm. There was a very interesting, and surprisingly reasonable trading post right on the pier that had much better warm hats than we had seen in Arizona (duh).

We then toured through the Rainforest Wildlife Sanctuary. Of course, having a name like that it had to live up to it so we tried out our new raincoats from Cabela's right away. Everything was dripping in lichen and moss. They rescue and try to rehab wildlife and had some reindeer there and this bald eagle. It was huge and won't be able to be released due to damage to one wing. It was so regal-looking. I enjoyed getting such a close-up of this magnificent bird.

For our first taste of how cold Alaska really is in early May, it was indeed cold to these two Arizona wimps.
One interesting sideline to our visit to this rainforest sanctuary was that we have a friend here in Arizona who runs a wildlife rescue foundation. We knew she was going to Alaska to do some of the same work for the summer, but she didn't say where she would be. We walked in to the gift shop and there was Geni! How many thousands of miles away from Arizona were we and we met up with a friendly face we knew! It was a big surprise for all three of us. She has a manager who runs her sancutary when she is gone and she was working there for the summer, what a change for her!