Ketchikan, AK

Being up in Alaska with my family is too fun! My dad fills up the whole lodge with friends and family- siblings, nephews, cousins, in-laws- everyone. You're all invited, btw. :) I loved sharing the Alaskan fishing adventure with Brad and the Hagens this year. A couple of days were very rainy, but make no mistake, that did not deter our fishing. Even though Brad and his parents had never even caught a fish before, it took Brad all of 5 minutes to determine he loved it. I'll admit his parents took a little longer to warm up to it... but by the end of the week we were all having a blast and enjoying the thrill of catching salmon in a very do-it-yourself kind of way. You can't understand how cool and satisfying it is until you do it.

My nephew preston caught the biggest King Salmon of the week, 40 lbs! Brad's 1st fish was still respectable, even if it was 1/4 the size. :)

The lodge is on it's own little island, so we get there via float plane:

Zinch's Ketchikan office: (Brad had to take a couple breaks from fishing to make some work calls)

Hiking the Naha is a must when you're up there- I walk along the path and feel like ewoks will pop out from the bushes at any moment. Its also kinda avatarish, costa rican-like, and when you push your way through the bushes it makes me feel like I'm on a safari. :) Pretty cool place.

Perfect atmosphere for seeing eclipse in small town Ketchikan, almost eerily so. We kept people watching and deciding whether people were vampires or from wolf packs, it was pretty obvious. And that deer standing right outside our room at the lodge, is that not straight from the beginning of the new moon movie?

Cruela Davil in a 25,000 outfit:

Blurry animals of Alaska: we saw whales, seals, dahl porpuses, bears, eagles, all that good stuff. It's amazing to see in the wild, too bad I couldn't get some better pics- the humpback whates coming up out of the water close to our boat then spouting up water was a highlight for me.

Ketchikan is a perfect place to spend the fouth of July- fireworks off a barge in the ocean. Cotton candy, fry bread and the likes from booths at the end of a unique little parade.

We started wondering what we would do with all the fish when we got home, we overlooked the fact we didn't own a freezer. So we checked ksl on our layover home in Seattle, and do you know what? We found a mighty fine ice box and the owner happened to live 4 houses away from us! They had a dolly so we rolled it over and loaded up the fish, couldn't have been more convenient.

And guess what we had for dinner last night?

yummy salmon, caught 2 days eariler! :)