The first time I went to Ketchikan, I came home with a boyfriend. My girlfriend and I flew on a commercial flight from Anchorage to Annette Island, and then we had to take a seaplane from there to Ketchikan.  Since then they've built an airport closer to Ketchikan, and I don't think the seaplane ride is necessary anymore, but it was fun!

About ten years later, Keith got a job in Ketchikan, and he took the jet.  He rented an apartment (an attached garage with carpeting).  I cleaned out our greenhouse and packed up the truck and camper.  I drove to Haines from Fairbanks with our two little boys.  The trip down the Alaska Highway to Haines was gorgeous, and we never had a lick of trouble.

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Islands protect you from the ocean on both sides most of the way through the inside passage.  Even Ketchikan is on the southwest shores of Revillagigedo Island.  When you travel the Alaska Marine Highway, a panorama of trees, mountains, and glaciers silently float by you.  Sometimes you'll even see a whale or two.

The ride on the ferry was a blast.... for the boys.  I get sea sick watching a sailboat commercial on tv, so I was purple and green most of the time.  We were on a strict budget and I brought our own food.  While the ferry stops at each port to disembark and load passengers, I could go down to the camper and get what we needed until the next stop.

The boys had fun entertaining the passengers with their stand-up comedy routines.  The tourists thanked them with ice cream and hot chocolate.

The day we arrived in Ketchikan, rain was sprinkling.  It didn't rain again until the day we left.  When were there for about a month, Keith got a job back in Fairbanks.  He was going to fly home, and leave me to pack up the boys and clean out the apartment.

"Whoa," I said.  "When is the next ferry?"

"Sunday," he said.

"If I can be ready by Sunday, will you wait and drive with us?" I pleaded.  He agreed.

After we were all loaded onto the ferry, the rain started blowing sideways.  You could barely stand to be on the outside deck.  An elderly tourist asked me, "Why would anyone ever want to live here?"

I couldn't explain; so I just smiled at her.  I'd just experienced one of the best summers of my life.

Because the summer had so little rain, we had to ration water that summer.  The man who owned the house we rented collected rain water in a cistern.  He turned on the water for an hour in the morning, and two hours in the evening.  The house hung over the water, and the boys could fish off the deck.

Ketchikan is built into the side of a mountain, and 2nd Avenue follows the Tongass Narrows.  Houses cling to the side of the mountain, and there are thousands of stairs to climb.  When we were there, there was only one traffic light that I saw.  So when you needed to pull out onto that one main road, you just went for it.

"They'll wait for you," our friend, Walter would say as he drove his truck pulling a boat out onto the street in front of a long line of cars.  We took his little boat across the water and went to an island.  It had a small beach, and you could wade across to another small island.  Not another person was in sight.  We did a little fishing, and then headed back.  A storm was blowing in so the water was really rough on the way back.  Walter never flinched, but I was sure we were all going to drown.

Walter and his wife used to live in Fairbanks.  They moved to Ketchikan and never came back.  He got a good job there, and they were happy living there.

Oh, and you know what happened to that boyfriend I brought home from Ketchikan?  I married him.