While in Haines I stayed at the Captain's Choice Motel. Surprisingly for Alaska, all of the motel's rooms had to be entered from the outside. The walkway to the rooms is on the water side of the motel. This is the view from that walkway. In the mid ground is the Lynn Canal (really a fjord rather than a canal). The background is mountains in the coastal range. Canada is on the other side of the mountains. Note the relatively smooth water near the foreground with white caps in the distance. The foreground is the relatively sheltered bay on which Haines was built. The water in the distance is the open portion of the Lynn Canal which is exposed for over 90 miles north-south. At that time of year the winds were relatively strong from the north kicking up the whitecaps.

Having lived in Northern Virginia for most of my life, I spent quite a bit of time driving up and down Virginia Route 7, also known as King Street, Broad Street and Leesburg Pike. I thought it was quite ironic that the ferry terminal I arrive at, the motel I stayed at, the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve (where I spent most of my waking hours) and the airport I departed from, were all located on Alaska Route 7. I think the Alaska route number signs have more character than their Virginia equivalents ;)

One of the things I wanted to do on this trip was to attend a performance at the Perseverance Theatre in Juneau. Molly Smith, the artistic director at Washington's Arena Stage, had originally founded it, and as a long time Arena subscriber, I wanted to see it. While I could have taken the ferry from Haines back to Juneau, It would not have arrived until late in the evening, long after the 4:00 pm curtain time on Sunday. Therefore I took a flight on the Wings of Alaska SeaPort Airlines, a small feeder airline serving Haines and Juneau. For this run they flew 10 place single engine turboprop Cessna 208 Caravans. This is a picture of flight K5 34 arriving in Haines. It turned around and went back as flight K5 35. Since the plane was full, I got to ride "right seat" on the 35 minute flight. All things considered, this may have been my last flight in a right seat.

Considering that this may have been my last flight in a right seat, I felt it was appropriate to document both the takeoff from Haines Municipal Airport (HNS runway 26) and the landing at Juneau International Airport (JNU runway 8). Even with all the flights I have flown these pictures show the two sights any pilot looks forward to - the thrill firewalling the throttle on takeoff and exhilaration of close final for landing. Other than an 18 hour weather delay at JNU, the remaining trip home was uneventful. One final note: While in Alaska the coldest temperatures I saw were the low 20s before sunrise at Haines. When I touched down at Dulles (IAD) early Wednesday morning it was 16 degrees :(