Day 11 --Alaskan Vacation

Emerald Waters------------------Bonzana Bar and Grill---------------- Streets of Skagway

Mountains traveling to Skagway-------- Harbor in Skagway

Thursday July 15, 2010. Left Whitehorse this morning to drive to Skagway for the day. It was raining in Whitehorse when we left and we drove in light rain about 50 miles. We traveled RT 2 to Skagway and the mountains were as high as you could see and the river running along the highway was at some points blue and at others the most beautiful shade of Emerald imaginable. The temperature was pretty cool --probably 47 degrees so the tops of the mountains were socked in with clouds and fog, which only added to the beauty. I know I will repeat the words beautiful and unbelievable a million times before I arrive home but the drive to Skagway was amazing! I have seen so many beautiful mountains but it was as if we were driving at the bottom of the world because the highway was surrounded by mountains and water the entire 95 miles to Skagway. Once we arrived in Skagway we drove down around the harbor area where again the entire town was surrounded by mountains and water. There were three cruise ships in dock when we arrived which meant the entire town was flooded with visitors. It was this way until about 1:00 and the people started thinning out considerably. The streets were filled with shops, most of which had at least some concern in the jewelry business. Jewelry is a BIG item in Skagway, diamonds, emeralds, gold or whatever you would like to spend your life savings on is available for sale. There were many other shops that catered to the NORMAL person with a little less money. I was amazed at the commerce throughout the town. I assume they all make enough money to continue their business with the number of tourist that arrive daily. We ate at The Bonanza Bar and Grill and Larry had deep fried Halibut and I had a salmon patty sandwich with sweet potato fries and we had Alaskan Amber and Alaskan Summer Ale to drink. The Summer Ale was my favorite even though it was darker in color than the Amber. Last night we tried Yukon Gold and it also was quite satisfying! My Salmon sandwich was wonderful. We walked around the town for several hours and tried to find out about taking a 'walk on' ferry over to Haines but could not find information as the ferry had already left prior to our arrival. The weather in Skagway was cold and windy. It was probably 45 degrees and a pretty stiff wind which made it feel colder. Everyone was walking around with heavy coats, hats and gloves. We had our heavy jackets but never did put them on as we both had on heavy sweatshirts which was warm enough for us. In Skagway the fog never lifted from the mountain tops and they still had snow at the top and partially down the sides. I don't think the sun ever shines, brightly at least, in Skagway. I'm not sure I could exist for long living there. We left to drive back to Whitehorse and when we drove about 30 miles out of Skagway the sun came out and was shinning on the mountains and the water and made the trip back even more beautiful than earlier this morning.

Tomorrow our plans were to drive to Tok, AK to spend the night and drive on into Anchorage on Saturday. The guy who has been parked next to us since we have been here told us he did not think we could make it to Tok tomorrow because of all the construction going on on the roadways. He said we should plan to stay in Destruction Bay, YT tomorrow night and then drive to Tok on Saturday. I called the campground where our neighbor stayed and the owner of the campground told us the road was terrible from Destruction Bay to Tok and would take us between 6-8 hours to drive. So hopefully we make it to Anchorage on Sunday as we have an appointment at Freightliner in Anchorage on Monday morning for our problems with the motor home, one of which is to replace the motor on windshield wipers.