Day 6- Getting from Haines to Haines Junction

When we woke up on Tuesday morning it was still raining and we were all a little damp, we decided that the best course of action was to head into the interior. There was a hike or two we had really wanted to go on in Haines, but we didn't venture that far.

Since we were leaving Haines a little earlier than planned we took time to travel that day. We stopped for a lot of scenic pictures and pulled off for a few short little hikes.

First stop the eagle reserve, it was the wrong time of year to see hundreds of eagles, but we saw a couple. And we learned a lot about the ravens and the eagles in the native traditions. We tried to go for a hike here, but the mosquitoes were as big as eagles and we didn't use bug spray so once we had all been bitten at least a dozen times we raced back to the van. 

We got back on the road and finally stopped at 33 mile. Another favorite restaurant of my parents. We ordered breakfast/lunch depending on peoples moods. 

Once we'd eaten we had more energy and the weather was holding out well, we headed further down the road to $1,000,000 Falls. Its a lovely little hike/walk on the board walk to actually see the falls. 

 Before we got back to the van after visiting the falls we got a nice little downpour.

For purposes of the blog, I won't  put in too many of our side of the road scenic shots, but this is a field of Fireweed. It's beautiful and I know for me fireweed just screams Alaska, it's one of those symbols.

 We stopped at another site, with a nice boardwalk hike. I don't remember the name of the place, but it was to see a "black glacier" or a glacier under dirt. The kids didn't make it to the end, but the vista was amazing.

 (You'll see a lot of the hands held out, I never figured out what they were trying to do, but maybe that was their way of pointing).

Haines Junction is actually in Canada so we had to cross the customs station which was pretty straight forward. There was a store in Haines Jct that my parents always liked to go into, but it wasn't there anymore. So we stopped at the one store we could find and grabbed some drinks, about 10 minutes down the road Sissy had to go potty so we pulled off into a campground area with an outhouse. It was around 5 p.m. so we decided we should see if there were any campgrounds and just stay there. We all felt like that was a lucky decision. The weather stayed nice the rest of the evening. While the other adults went to look for the campsite I stayed with the kids at this little park and then we walked down to the lakes edge, where the kids dipped their feet and found seashells.

 We camped at Pine Lake for just the one night. We had a nice little dinner and a fire. There was time to dry out the sleeping gear before we needed to sleep that night. We took a little walk around the campsite and realized the lake and campsite were connected. It was of course another beautiful location. Also I will mention here that camping on the ground here was nothing like camping in Utah. The ground was covered with soft ground cover plus it stays relatively moist so it was like already being on a carpet even before the pads went down. Lovely way to sleep.