Wednesday, July 23


It turned out that the "RV Staging Area" in which we slept our first night in Petersburg staged more than just RVs (of which we were the only one) . At about 5:30 AM Dick was awakened by the setting up of a vegetable market. As you may have noticed from my pictures, southeast Alaska consists mainly of water, mountains, and very tall trees -- not much space for growing vegetables. So every two weeks this fellow goes to Seattle, buys a whole barge-load of fruits and vegetables, and has it towed up to Petersburg, where he sells it at this outdoor market for a few days and then moves on to Sitka. He had enthusiastic takers later in the morning as he passed out samples of Rainier cherries and mangoes.



We grabbed a capuccino at a charming little cafe and then moved on to the visitors' information center, where we encountered an enthusiastic Petersburg booster with lots of interesting suggestions. Just as we were preparing to leave, a couple of backpackers, Sue and Ken, whom we had also seen at the cafe, walked in and asked where the nearest campground was . They were dismayed to learn that it was 22 miles away. Our Petersburg booster suggested that the bicycle shop would sometimes drive rented bicycles and their riders to the campground, but when they called he said his van was in the repair shop, so he couldn't do it. We offered to help, and we ended up driving their very heavy packs to the U.S. Forest Service campground at Ohmer Creek, where we were planning to go anyway, while they biked out. We also organized a joint dinner of oysters roasted over the fire, Dungeness crabs cooked by the fish market, and salad and cherries from the vegetable market. A royal feast! Sue and Ken live in New Zealand and are on an adventurous trip to Siberia. We very much enjoyed their company.



On the way to the campground we encountered a few Sitka black-tailed deer; since we are accustomed to white-tailed deer, it seemed worth showing one. And we took a walk along the Blind River Rapids trail; I know it doesn't look much like rapids in the picture, but the salmon were running in it, and we watched a bear cub -- too distant for a good picture -- catch one.