HAINES PART 2

Well, another day gone by, of course the part didn't come so we spent the day doing chores, laundry, etc. Then we went to see the "Hammer Museum". We weren't real enthused about going but the other options seemed like they were the same old stuff. When we got there we found it very interesting and the character who runs it is very colorful. The double handled hammer he is holding had an interesting story. He had bought it on ebay. One day a gentleman came in on the cruise ship. He said he had given that hammer to his secretary and she evidently sold it on ebay. His telling of the story was a lot more interesting than mine. He has hammers from all over the world, one that was evidently used on the building of the pyramids. Gary holds one that he thought would be good for nailing around corners. The one out front he made himself. He said people would just walk by when he first opened the museum. He decided he needed something to get their attention so he made the 19' 8" tall hammer. The handle is made of local spruce with the head sculpted from those blue styrofoam sheets, then coated it with fiberglass. It turned out pretty good and seems to be drawing in the people.

The town today was a little busier than yesterday, probably because the Volendam cruise ship was in port. We caught a picture of it for you.

Thursday, Sept 4 - Well, if we had no bad luck we would have no luck at all. Called the parts store this afternoon. They said our part had come in. Walked down to pick it up and discovered there had been a miscommunication between the clerks. It hadn't. Then the clerk called the company to get a tracking number so we could check on its progress and found that their computer had been down and the part was never even sent. We decided to cancel it and head home. The weather here has been foggy and cold, at least to us. Heard today that they had some snow and freezing rain in Tok, guess we got out of there just in time. We will be leaving Haines on the ferry at 10 p.m., heading to Skagway. Don't suppose that we will be much in the mood to do sightseeing there so this will probably be our last post from Alaska. If we have an opportunity to get online at a library on route we will try to keep you posted on our progress. Our main objective, at least until we get to warmer weather, is homeward bound.