Haines - The Rest of Sunday

As you arrive at the Chilkoot Lake the road splits - one direction enters the road leading along the river to the lake, and the other rounds the river to the right and fairly quickly dead-ends.

Before LC and I headed back to town, and while we were still on a high from seeing momma and baby bears, we travelled down the road to the right to see where it lead.

We stopped at the bridge, and I snapped a picture of this young family.  Somehow it seemed so "Alaskan" to me, to see a mother fishing while carrying baby on her back.

And a couple more pictures of the fast moving river........

Scenes from the place where the road dead-ended (only about 1/2 mile from where the road split).

There were mountains to one of side of us, and these beautiful water and mountain scenes to the other.

Most of the homes were lovely, well-to-do homes overlooking the water......

Before heading to the dance and potluck downtown we stopped at the Hungry Moose for a milkshake.

This little seasonal shack does great business, and after grabbing our milkshakes I was sorry that we had not stopped at this place before we did.

An enterprising young woman apparently owns it, and offers a very popular array of quick breakfast sandwiches and muffines, burgers, assorted hot and cold coffees, and lots and lots of different ice-cream treats.

And surprisingly, it was nowhere near as expensive there as I thought that it would be.

There were picnic tables and benches to eat and, and if we make it back to Haines in the summertime I will definately stop there again......

Heading into a portion of town that I had not yet explored, this was the first thing that caught my attention.

It is a wonderful painting located on the outside of a building.

It was right after taking a picture of this painting that I turned around and surprisingly saw my son and my dog.

I had to laugh.  My now NJ-Boy was wearing a pair of surfer shorts, a Kid Rock t-shirt, white socks and desert army boots. 

He looked.........more relaxed than I had seen him since he arrived in Alaska.  I was very happy to see him.......

We all sought out the shade of this building for a few minutes, and dug out some water for Jamie.

Beside the building was this wonderful carved marble statue of an adult and baby bear..........

Once we started moving again, I took a couple of pictures of beautiful things growing in yards outside downtown buildings.

I have no idea what this building is, and after enjoying the front yard for a few minutes realized that there was no front door.

Or rather, there were plants growing in front of the front door...........

Another old, small and rustic downtown building, with beautiful flowers growing both in front and around the side.......

Beautiful old buildings all, but from a distance and taken in totality, together they all look very old west and frontier-like....

Eventually we all focused on the congregation of people standing in the center of the street, and realized that everyone was pulling together to have their 100th birthday picture taken:

http://hainesnews.net/2010/08/20/haines-celebrates-100th-birthday-there-was-dancing-in-the-street/

Happy Birthday Haines!

And right after that the band started playing and the long lines for food began to form.

I walked down to the IGA grocery store and bought a dessert to contribute to the potluck.....

I don't remember the name of the band, but they were really very good, and played an electic variety of music ranging from country to bluegrass to rock-n-roll to soul......

And even though the temperature was over 80 degrees by mid-afternoon, the band soon had people dancing in the street..........

By the time I returned from the IGA and watched the dancers and musicians for a while, the line was a little shorter.

I joined the line and stood waiting for hot dogs and hamburgers (that were provided by the city), and all the potluck items that had been supplied by residents of this community.

 Again it was all wonderfully peaceful and friendly and joyous - spending part of our day with others who had decided to celebrate a birthday and break bread with their neighbors in the sun...... 

While waiting in line for food I stood directly in front of three happy-go-lucky young people, and they all began laughing and joking about one of their friends shoes, which apparently were just getting broken in.........

After I asked the young man if I could take a picture of his shoes, and then explaining to all three that I had a blog and that I took pictures of EVERYTHING, they all wanted their shoes to be photographed.

As one of them opined, you can tell a lot about a person by the shoes that they wear..........

Lots and lots (and lots) of food!!

By the time I loaded my plate down with food I was overheated, and needed to sit in the shade. 

I found my Mountain Boy sitting on the step of a closed hair dressing salon and we gathered up Jamie, walked over to a large building, and joined others who were sitting and eating on the grass in the shade of a large building.

Chris had disappeared.  Turns out he had taken the truck back to the campground to pick up.......yes......the fishing rods......

I ate.  Mountain Boy ate.  When my son returned and tracked us down he ate as well.

And while they took the truck to scope out still more fishing spots, I decided to walk some more.  It was a beautiful day, I needed the exercise, and I had eaten too much.  Time to move....

A quick visit to the library.  A totem pole outside the town library.......

And one more totem pole at the high school.  I love this picture - I like the angle and really like the blue sky.......

This interesting graphic was seen on the outside of what I assume was a tech/trade building at the high school.......

My Mountain Boy took this very awesome picture.  Taken at Chilkoot Lake again. 

Momma bear feeding at the fence (which I recently learned is actually called a weir), and baby bear with a fish in his mouth.......

A couple of hours later I met back up with my guys and spent some time down by the boat harbor fishing and enjoying still more sunshine in the early evening.......

After eating unsatisfactorily at the Lighthouse Restaurant for the second time in two days we took one last drive before heading back to the campground for the night.

We went out to the mudflats for just a short time to enjoy the end of daylight, and the end of our last day in this wonderful beautiful town.

Sunset in Haines Alaska........

When I started blogging about our trip to Haines I had no idea that it was going to turn into such a major undertaking, explaining everything that we had seen over our weekend.

So many pictures.  So many experiences.  So many adventures.  All crammed into a few short days.

Although it did not feel crammed at the time.

It was all very wonderful.

And we were all asleep in bed by 10:30pm.

One last blog to go on our ferry ride home........

A gift of a view to end our day.