Wrangell

This morning, half of our group went up the Stikine River by jet boat. The other half stayed behind and golfed, toured petroglyph beach or reloaded supplies on their boat. Aaron and I enjoyed a nice down home breakfast at the Diamond C Café and then made our way back to the Stikine Inn.

Buck returned from Seattle in the morning to the insanity that is The Grand Tour. We’d had problems getting materials shipped to us, so he arrived with huge boxes of STUFF. Aaron and I helped him get it unloaded and set it up around the room where we would hold our grand finale.

At 3:00, we went by the Elks, who had arranged a very special “Yachtini” event in honor of our arrival. They made specialty martinis that they served over glacier ice. They put out a huge spread for everyone to enjoy, all sorts of seafood and fish. It was so incredible of them to go all out for us.

At 5:30, we headed over to the Stikine Inn, where we were to have our grand finale dinner. We started out with wine and prawns and crab. Jonathan had prepared a slideshow with a bunch of great photos from the trip. People enjoyed watching that as they chatted, ate and drank. Dinner was great, the hugest steaks imaginable or salmon. People certainly had more than enough great food to eat. During dinner, a number of people spoke, and several read incredible poems to commemorate the trip and the finale.

It was a great end to a really wonderful event. It was so nice to get a chance to say goodbye to the participants and collect a bunch of hugs. I’m going to miss those guys. We had some fun, sweet, smart people on our tour. I felt very lucky to get to know so many of them. I’ll miss them and the tour, but I am looking forward to going home to my family.