Adventure Karts, Taquan Dinner and One Last Party

On our last Saturday in Ketchikan, which was also the first day after the last of the ships, Taquan had their End of Season Party. We started out with a fun spin in the Adventure Karts, just past Wipple Creek. We took a motor coach out there and our driver was Chris, who is one of my favorite drivers.

Once out there we were given rain gear to put on over our clothes. Good thing too, I found out. With all the rain there were plenty of puddles!

We were assigned our karts and given a quick briefing on how to operate them.

Then we were off! I drove in front of Dan and Dan had the "GoPro" camera affixed to the roll bar of his kart. He got a lot of really great video of the ride.

As I'd said, we'd had a whole lot of rain, so there were plenty of puddles to drive through. And, as there are no windows (including no windshield), the mud was flying everywhere.

Here's me looking pretty darn clean. Yeah, we were just starting out.

I took these pictures while we were driving. I steered with my left hand and grabbed some shots with my right hand. I tried to pick the parts of the "road" that were straighter and less pot holes.

Here's one of the biggest puddles we came upon. The next picture I took as I was going through this. You can see the mud splashing up. And, yes, I took it in the face!

When we got to the top we all got out of our karts. We could see Clover Pass from up here. That was neat because Clover Pass is where I caught my fish and where we saw our whales.

Clover Pass

Clover Pass is behind me. Boy, I'm starting to look a little bit muddy.

Chris, Me and Dan

Time to head back down. This time Dan went in front of me and took some video of the front of me in my kart.

I was able to capture a picture of our karts out of my side mirror.

We got back and, as you can see from the picture above, it was a muddy good time! Then I found out that there was no time to go home to get cleaned up for our dinner at The Narrows. In fact, we had just enough time to wipe off some of the mud and get back to The Narrows; there were other Taquan people waiting for us.


Here are some of those Taquan people:

Brian Salazar, owner; Gary, pilot

Leah, dispatch

Lindy, dispatch

AJ, driver for Spirit of Alaska

Kevin, Director of Operations

Brian, dock; Dan, pilot

Mike, pilot; Brian

Danita (right), dispatch

Don, outside sales

left to right: Bobby, pilot; Shannon, Mgr Spirit of Alaska; Tim, Mgr Spirit of Alaska; AJ, driver

left; Earl, bear guide; right; Josh, bear guide

.............And then the party moved on to the Potlash Bar at the Thomas Basin downtown Ketchikan for a little karyoke.................

l to r: Paul, Leah, Monica, Brian

Joyce with Dan and Me

Kevin and Sarah

My Sweetie

Sing it girls! (Joyce and Monica)

Damn, we sound good!

Tomorrow Dan and I start to pack up everything. Gee, I hope it all fits into the Rogue......................