Haines, AK

The view from our hotel room in Haines, AK

As the ferry approached Haines this morning, we were shocked in the change of scenery. For the most part, everything had been green along the way, but this morning everything we saw was covered in snow. Kevin made the comment that as soon as we got off the ferry he was going to throw a snowball at me, and I went on to say, "oh there wont be snow on the ground!" Yea right... when we drove off the ferry my mouth hit the floor. Everything was covered in snow, and people were throwing snowballs for their dogs, as if it was a tennis ball!

We drove into town, which was about 4 miles from the ferry dock. Haines is a very small town, but has a gas station, a general store, and a few specialty shops. We checked into our hotel (Captain's Choice Motel) and unloaded our stuff. The first thing we did was give the dogs a bath. They were filthy from running around in the snow and mud, plus they smelled like pee (since they had to pee on the concrete it got all over their little paws). Once we got them all cleaned up, we drove to the general store to buy laundry detergent and to see if they had New Moon on DVD (they had received the shipment of DVD's today, but wouldn't be putting them out until tomorrow). We came back to the room, and decided Haines is small enough that we could just walk everywhere. We decided that it was time to buy some snow/rain boots since we couldn't find them anywhere in Texas and didn't want to order them online without trying them on. We found a cute little shop, where we each got our snow boots and a pair of wool socks. The woman who helped us was so sweet and helped us pick out the perfect boots (even though they are hideous) and even helped comfort my worries about driving the 400+ miles to Tok, Ak in one day.

We walked back to the hotel, pretty excited about our new purchase. We keep just looking our our window at the mountains and saying, "Can you believe we are in Alaska?" At this point in time, there is about 12 hours of light, and 12 hours of darkness. As the spring/summer progresses there will be more light and less dark, but we should have some time to slowly start adjusting to that. It has been pretty cloudy today, but no rain/snow and the wind hasn't been to bad. It has been about 38-40 degrees, so not too miserable, but still pretty chilly! Our plan for tomorrow is to get all of our laundry done, and to readjust the car since everything was just thrown in this afternoon (oh, and to go buy New Moon!) We will be in Haines tonight and tomorrow, and early Wednesday morning we will be driving through Canada to Tok, AK. Our plan is to stay there a few nights, drive to Anchorage and stay there a few nights, then drive to Homer, which is where we get on the next ferry, for a night or two. We will get on the next ferry April 1st, and will arrive in Kodiak on April 2nd! I'm so ready to be there already, to move into our house, and for all of our belongings to arrive... then it will feel like home!