Haines Aug 3

I woke up at 5:00 am to squawking ravens. Those birds sure talk a lot in the morning. The area around my tent was like a gang war between the gulls and the ravens. I guess they are hungry and need to talk about it.

I fell back to sleep and was awoken by my cell phone alarm. In a half awake stupor, I thought the ravens turned it on. I turned it off and listen to the ravens for another hour. I finally decided to get up. Sitting at a picnic table eating a breakfast bar I watched two ravens go at it over a hair tie. Several other campers were now stirring so I decided to break camp, washed the bike, and get a shower. Once my chores were finished I left all my gear packed up at the campground and walked into town for breakfast. Returning to the campground I and visited with all my fellow campers. John and Jason, a father and son set of riders from New Mexico. John is a 48 year old small business owner. Jason is 18 and leaving for college in the fall. Ray woke up and started complaining about his engine to Jon. While they visited a green van pulled up and asked me if they could play some music from their new album. They were called “Behind Safire”. Hoping that they would provide a little entertainment I said "Yes". They sang us three songs and I was impressed. They were very cool young kids with the artistic skill and drive to make a go of it in music. I bought a CD and then went to the beach to do some photography.

I found an old pier area. As always, I was happy to be shooting. Haines is a great area to shoot; next I decided to head out of town to the end of route 2. I stopped on the way and got my tickets for the boat. The bay in front of Haines ends in a river. While wandering around, I met up with Stony and Marci. They were two other bikers I met at the campground. We talked about our trip and watched an eagle sit in a tree at the end of the bay. Yes, of course it was a beautiful day and I was glad to be on a bike. After shooting I ran back to the campground to load up. None of my fellow bikers were at the campground so I quickly strapped on the gear. On the way out of town I stop to get a little food for supper. I ended up with a 26-dollar order of fish and chips. Not cool, not cool at all.

So I proceeded out to the ferry dock and got in line. This was the wildest thing I have done during this whole trip. They ran us down a ramp into the side of the ship. Once inside we drove our bikes onto a freight elevator. This elevator held four bikes. We were lifted up one floor and drove the bikes to the very back of the ship. Several gentleman drug heavy chains out and hooked them into the floor all the way across the room. They then tighten them down and told us to strap our bikes down to the chains. It was crazy. All the bikers started digging through they’re gear pulling out rope and tie down scraps, most of the people put their bikes up on the center stand. Once finished I offered to help the guy next to me put his bike on a center stand. He looked at me for a minute and then smiled. "Dude, Harley's don’t have center stands. They’re too damn heavy for that shit." We both laughed.

After getting the bike strapped down I walked up stairs to find a place for my tent. The people riding two on a bike had the advantage of being able to split up and get their tent setup while the other did the bike. I was out of luck. I started asking around and found that the very top deck had an area for camping also. The top deck of this ship is called the Solaris deck. It turns out that this is the place to be. They actually have electric heaters mounted on the ceiling. I looked around and decided that instead of messing around with the tent I would just crash in the deck chairs. Half of the chairs were already being use as beds by the time I got up there. So I grabbed all my stuff and dropped it beside one of the chairs and rolled out my sleeping bag. The ferry left port and all seem good. I had made the ferry. Parked the bike and had a place to sleep. Life can still have some simple pleasures. The view pulling away was nice. A stream of people came to the upper deck and took pictures. It was fun to watch people be people. I found my friends John and his son Jason and went to the front of the boat to look for whales and dolphins. A musician that was traveling started playing in the bar while us. After about an hour our group went in to see what the guy was all about. Marci and Stony were hanging out and enjoy the music. They invite us to join them for awhile.