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Up and at them! We have church goers in the house! Last night we figured out who goes to what church and now all I have to do is deliver the folks to their churches and pick them up afterward.
First ones to drop off are Raul and Amelia at the First Baptist church. They want to attend the bible study and then go to the service at 11:00. We got to the church and they got out. As I got ready to go, Jerry objected because I didn't at least wait to make sure they got in. Well, it turns out the church is locked up but they want to stay anyway so onward to the next church.
I dropped Nina off at the door to the Holy Name Catholic Church. Again, Jerry, with the objections. This time he is objecting because I almost run over a couple of people backing up. I told him we have plenty of Catholics in this town! We can spare a few!
Since Jerry and I are not attending church, for fear of lightening, we head over to Alaska Seafood and Wild Game store. This is a tiny shop in town where you can buy any kind of wild game you want. Heck, you can even get alligator meat here! How this fits into Alaskan wild game is beyond me though. Since nobody in the group except Tammy and I have ever had Reindeer sausage, that's what we are on the hunt for. Just my luck, the shop is closed on Sundays so this will have to wait till tomorrow. Disappointed and empty handed we mucked around town for a while and then picked up Nina and went home. Raul and Amelia called about 12:30 and we ran into town to get them. It turns out they found the side door to the church and it was open. Tammy used to work at a preschool here so we know the place well. They went in and had a chance to visit with the associate pastor for a while.
A quick lunch and we are ready to head out the door. First touring stop today is Settler's Cove State Park. This park is located at the north end of the island and has beach access plus lots of great trails to walk. You better be in decent shape for the trails though cause the go up and down through the woods. We stopped several times for photo ops and just to enjoy the scenery and views from the decks out to the ocean. Since it hasn't rained much this month, the creek was tame and the waterfall wasn't much to look at this time but it still made for a beautiful sight.
Luckily, the berries were in bloom so we had ample opportunity to stop and enjoy huckleberries, blueberries, and salmon berries right off the bushes. I told everyone a simple rule for which berries they can eat. Never eat berries that grow close to the ground or berries that grow in tight bunches. Everything else is fair game! Everyone signed in at the visitors' registry book and then we just walked around a bit enjoying the park. We even walked over to the new cabin they just built last year which is really close to the beach and available for rent. I bet it's already booked out a year! When I did my motorcycle ride a year ago, I stayed in a cabin just like this at a KOA campground.
Back in the car and off we go. Since the end of the road going north is right around the corner, we drove out there. This way, we will drive out the the south end of the island later and they can see that we only have 36 miles of highway on the island. Stolen cars aren't missing for very long around here!
We headed back into town for some shopping. You know tourists, they gotta get their souvenirs! We walked all over town and even got to see a cruise ship departing the dock. I showed everyone the building I used to work in at city hall, third floor and then we hit the shops. I used to hate working downtown because the tourists think its Disneyland and they step into traffic without looking! We, of course, had to do the tourist thing and do the one thing that drives me nuts about tourists. We stepped into the middle of one road for a picture under the welcome arch. I made sure no cars were coming though so we wouldn't get yelled at.
These people are serious shoppers so we went into the dock store and set them loose! First round of souvenir hunting completed and everyone is ready for a dinner break. Master chef Jerry took over the grill and produced some great fat burgers, sausage, and corn on the cob. We ate good and no one walked away hungry.
After dinner, we decided it was low tide coming up at 9:00 pm so we should head out to Herring Cove to see if we had better luck with finding bears. Raul and Amelia opted out and chose to stay home getting some much deserved rest after all that shopping. The rest of us headed out. Well, we lucked out because the bears were out in force this time. I think we saw seven bears. Most of our attention was focused on two mama bears that each had a cub in tow. One of the mama bears caught a salmon out of our view and took it into the high grass for dinner. It sat there eating until the other mama bear noticed she had a salmon. They had a staring contest which the second mama bear won. The bear that got the salmon hit the road and left the salmon behind. The winning bear came over and helped herself to leftovers as her cub played in the grass. The bears were right below a wooden walkway and one point the cub climbed up onto the walkway and then back down. We were a little worried that someone might come down the walkway and mama bear would get nasty but luckily that didn't happen.
After a while and much debate about how many bears we saw and who guessed correctly how many bears we would see, we headed home for the evening.
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