Yes Bay Lodge~ Ketchikan, AK~ May 31, 2012

Yes Bay Lodge ~ Ketchikan, AK ~ May 31, 2012

Yesterday I arrived in Ketchikan. I took the ferry from the airport to the mainland. There I shared a taxi with a guy named Dave into town. Dave came to Alaska t go hunting with some buddies. He’s from Utah. I came to work at Yes Bay Lodge. The taxi dropped me at the home of my couch surfing host Seth K. Dave wouldn’t let me pay for the taxi, and he carried my duffel bag to the door where he waited until I got the key from under the mat and the door opened. Such a gentleman! The world is full of wonderful people. Seth wasn’t home. A firefighter, he was working until the next morning. Exhausted from traveling across the country in an airplane (several actually) I went to bed at 7:45, fell promptly to sleep, and slept until 4:00 am. Looking at my watch, I thought, “oh no; it’s too early!” so I dozed a bit until 5:00 when Gillian called and woke me up for good. She thought I hadn’t left Virginia yet. It was 9:00 there.

At 7:30 Seth came home and we met for the first time. What a trusting soul to allow a stranger access to his home while he was at work. Great Guy! The world is full of them. He had many things to do to get ready for a kayaking trip to Glacier Bay, but still took the time to drive me to the Yes Bay Lodge office in town. Tina at the office gave me a ride to Walmart where I bought four months worth of toiletries, and some yarn to make an afghan for Thomas. I caught a free shuttle back to town and went all the way downtown to where the cruise ships were docked. Busy place. I had some time to kill so I wandered around a bit. Seth called to make sure I had gotten all that I needed, and when he realized I was downtown he said to go by and see a guy named Raffi who is another couch surfer and owns a café in Ketchikan. I met Raffi and told him I’d be back in town later in the summer. Then I took the shuttle back to the office where I got on a floatplane with a deck hand, Eric, and the pilot, Mark. Mark flew us to the lodge in the rain.

Now that I’m here I’m having big time second thoughts about all of this. I came here thinking that I would be able to hike everyday, and the first thing I’m told is that under no circumstances am I to hike alone. So far there’s no one else that wants to hike. I really don’t want to hike with a partner anyway. I love to hike alone. I need to hike alone. At least a little walk anyway. There’s nowhere to walk here. Oh, there’s a lake a mile and a half away- MacDonald Lake, which would be perfect, but Kevin, my boss and owner of Yes Bay Lodge says it’s not safe because of the bears. Ok then, where can I walk? I can’t he says, and too bad, and if I don’t stop asking there’s going to be trouble. Really? I had in mind a three mile round trip walk to the lake everyday with a  longer hike on my day off and now I’m told this is not going to happen. I’m just not even sure I can stay here. For four months? Yikes!

Internet service is spotty. I'll try to upload some photos later.