Skagway

What a town!  Geared to the tourists and the cruise ships in particular.  We spent 3 nights/4 days, course we did the tourist thing!  Walked up and down Broadway, the main shopping street, seems like every other store is a jewelry store and they are out to get you!  Advertising says “free charm just for walking in”.  That’s when the high pressure sales starts, but I was sort of good, only bought one pair of earrings, hope I got a good deal, talked the sales person down over $400!  Visited the quilt shop here, boy oh boy, did they have some great fabric!  Here I tried to show some restraint but Jon didn’t, he bought a kit ,but I have to make it!

There were 4 rigs of our group that made the trip down the mountain into Skagway.  The scenery was breathtaking, even thru the rain, which we had all the way!  Forgot to snap a photo of the campsite in Skagway, it wasn’t anything great, but filled the bill for us.  Great laundromat though.  As a group, we decided to go to the Salmon bake at Liarsville which included some gold panning and a show.  Jon latched onto one of the showgirls.

She told a good story by Robert Service.

The salmon was fantastic!  It was all you could eat with all the fixin’s too.  Since we got back early, Jon and I drove the road to Dyea, which is the real start of the Klondike trail.  Now it’s just a ghost town site, but we did see this on the way up there.

 

The next day we took the Fjord Express to Juneau, it’s a fast ferry ride.  We saw several Eagles, lots of humpback whales and harbor seals on the trip.

On arrival in Juneau, we were taken by bus to the city center, course there were a couple of cruise ships in port.  Jon and I ate lunch at the pier, wonderful Salmon chowder and fish tacos, yum!  Walked around doing the tourist thing here too.  I found the quilt shop and just had to get some more fabric!  I will have the most unusual quilt of Alaska with all these different fabrics I’m collecting.  The bus collected us for the return to the ferry with a stop on the way at the fabulous Mendenhall Glacier.

Then all too soon it was time to head back to Skagway. 

On our last day we rode the White Pass and Yukon railroad.  The only way to do this was behind the steam engine! 

Wonderful end to another great day was back to the campground in Carcross.

More later!