Day 21, We're Home!

The announcement came on at 2:30 that we were 30 minutes away from Juneau so Lance and I got up and finished packing up the few things we had left in the room. For some reason, maybe it was a new ship pilot, but it seemed to take forever to get the boat docked. I was watching out my window and the deck hand literally laid down on the dock waiting. We finally got off the boat at 3:30. The sun was already up! Sophia stayed asleep during the transfer, but Brett was wide awake as soon as we stepped out the door of our cabin room. When I was putting him in his car seat, he got upset and all of a sudden sounded like a seal barking. I couldn't believe it, 3 weeks of traveling and he gets sick on the last day. He wouldn't go to sleep so once we were out in the parking lot, I rocked him to sleep and laid him down next to Sophia in the top bed in the motor home. We drove up the street in the motor home to a beautiful glacier. It was 4 in the morning and so peaceful. It was the perfect setting, just where you'd imagine finding a bear, first thing in the morning, quiet stream running into the ocean, trees all around....still no bears. So we took some pictures and drove back to the ferry terminal to get a little bit of sleep.

8 o'clock came very fast, both the kids awake now, we loaded onto the fast ferry to Sitka!! The last 4 hours of our journey, we were almost home!

We were sitting in the front of the boat when we heard our name announced over the intercom to go to the Solarium deck so we grabbed the camera and headed to the back. Immediately upon opening the door, the United States Coast Guard H60 Jayhawk was staring at us in the face. It must have been 50 feet off the stern. It was awesome!!

Grinning ear to ear, Lance asked if we could go up on the bridge and talk to the ship captain so they called him and he let us come. They loved the Coast Guard fly by! Lance talked to the captain, who was younger that he was, for a while, until the kids were getting into everything and we decided we'd better head back down stairs.

We grabbed some food and then went back to the front to watch as we entered the narrow passages through the islands. The captain said they saw a bear yesterday through there so I was ready to see it, searching all over the place. No bears but a lot of bald eagles. They are everywhere! Its really neat. The weather is about 59 degrees and over cast. We had a lot of sun this morning but the cloud cover quickly came in as the day went on.

(Sophia and our first look of Sitka in the background!)

We arrived in Sitka at about 12:45 and had a crew of guys from the air station there to meet along with our host family, the Krueger's. Sean drove with Lance to show him where to go and we made our way the 4 miles into town to find our apartment we're renting.

We have this cute little 2 bedroom apartment downtown, owned by a super nice couple who are so accommodating. They moved the desk out of the kids room so we could fit the pack'n play in since we wouldn't need it and then suggested they could take the box spring off Sophia's bed in case she falls off, she wouldn't have as far to go. Then, as I was getting things organized into or rooms, Lance was outside trying to figure out a way to get the Jetta out of the trailer and Jack offered to help him so he ran to his shop to construct a ramp to get it out!

Throughout the day Brett's cough got much better. Just sounds like a regular cold and runny nose.

The Kruegers invited us over for dinner so we went to their beautiful house with the beautiful ocean/mountain view to relax for our first evening in Sitka!

The kids both fell asleep on the way home so Lance and I took a joy ride around town, got home to put the kids to bed and started unloading all the groceries we'd stocked up on! Lance did all the hard work, hauling all the bags up the 20 steps to our apartment, I just had to put them all away. It was fun to lay it all out on the counters and see all the food!

We went to bed at 10:30 and it was still practically light as day out!