Wrangall - day 2 - Icebergs and moose

Today we took a boat tour up the Sitkine River. One of the longest fresh water and fastest flowing fresh water rivers in the US.  We left the campground to meet the boat at the City dock at 9. We had just left the entrance to the campground and as we turned to start down the hill towards Wrangall we saw 2 MOOSE in the middle of the road!!!! Wahoo!!!!! By the time I could get to the camera they had run off the road. They have the longest legs and are sort of clumsy looking. We were so excited to see them! What a way to start the day. People we spoke to later on were amazed that we had seen them.

 There were 6 of us on the tour boat  including a couple (John and Kathy) that we had met just briefly on the ferry up from Ketchikan.Every one we are meeting is named John!   We had a wonderful time. We spent over 6 hours out on the water. Typical Alaska weather - sun/rain/sun/rain and mosquitos etc.   Again we saw many Eagles. The waterfalls were spectacular. We saw several cute "Float Houses" which are basically little cabins on pilings/floats that are anchored in estuaries off the main river. They are privately owned, but the door is always unlocked to give people stranded due to weather access to use the shelter and call on the Marine VHF radio foir help.We were trying to get up to Shakes Glacier but the way was blocked by ICEBERGS!!! Way cool again. We actually chipped some off and sucked on 1000 year old glacier ice. The blue doesn't show well in the pictures but it was so pretty. On the way back we stopped by a natural hot spring. The forest service had enclosed it and had also built a small changing room. We had a bit of a hike up to it but it was wonderful. There were some locals up there also who we enjoyed talking to. We did learn that one reason the Forest service had enclosed it was because of the Alaska size MOSQUITOS. They are big!! The tour guide gave us all  head nets to wear as we walked up to the spring. We saw some seals as we came bck into town. No bears but we can cross Moose and Icebergs off our to see list. We are now sitting in the lounge of the only hotel in town updating this blog. We are exhausted but have had a great day. Tonight we will go back out to the U.S.F.S. campground and then tomorrow we get the ferry in the afternoon to Petersburg.