Two Crazy Chickens: Top 2 Favorites List

Haines, Alaska is one of our top two favorite towns we visited in Alaska. The Haines Highway, 150 miles long leading to town, is gorgeous. There is only one way in and one way out, unless you're traveling by boat or float plane. We stayed in Haines for 3 nights prior to getting on the Alaska Marine Highway Ferry. While in Haines, my Salmon fishing obsession transitioned into a bear sighting obsession and we had some pretty exciting bear sightings. Once I knew there was a Grizzly mother and her three new cubs that frequented the area I was determined to see them. Fortunately our persistence paid off. It was so cool to get to see the Mom catching salmon and tossing them to her babies. The babies were snorting and making all kinds of noise as they ate. The individual bear in the pictures was actually the 4 year old daughter of the mother that was with her three cubs. We came to find out that the Mama bear has been named "Speedy" by the locals and has been in the area for over 16 years. Nobody had seen her last year and they all assumed she had died, turned out out she was having herself a love connection and showed up this Spring with the three new cubs. We were staying right by downtown so we were able to easily walk around. Haines is not a big city but we had fun exploring. Surprising to find out there was a rain forest in the area. We started our hike in dense woods, then in to rainforest, then on to a prairie that lead to the beach. We ate our lunch sitting on the beach looking at two glaciers. Bears in the morning and glaciers in the afternoon, a pretty eventful day. Unfortunately I had to visit the local dental program for a tooth issue and a sinus infection. Gotta say, didn't know what to expect in tiny little Haines but ended up being very impressed with the Dentist I saw.

View out our front window. The campground was just a big gravel lot, but it looked out on the bay and the view couldn't be beat. The owner, Joyce was a character. I commented to her that I was wearing a hat all day because my hair needed to be colored, her comeback was "your in Alaska, nobody gives a shit about how their hair looks"... I may stay. Speaking of staying, things have been so beautiful here that I made the comment to Chris that if it was like this all the time in Alaska, I would consider moving here, his comeback was "if it was like this all the time, everyone would want to move here". But it doesn't stay like this year round, that is why the population of Haines is only about 2,000. Winter weather is right around the corner and from everything we have heard, it's nasty.