6-17-2013 In and around Skagway

Our first full day in Skagway was a cleanup day, inside and out.   Bob had the worst of it!  Both the motorhome and the car were terribly dirty, with all our miles and rain storms!!  From Dallas to Skagway, we have travelled 3,564!!    It has been an amazing journey with more to go, but they did not look like Bob vehicles!!  

This is the view out the front of our motorhome window.

After Sharon finished dusting all the surfaces inside, Bob discovered that the inside of the cabinets needed dusting too!!!  But, we decided to do some sightseeing around town instead.  It’s a quaint little town with lots of character.  During the day, there are plenty of tourists from the cruise ships. We wondered throughout the shops to see what they have to offer.  We did go into the Tru-Value hardware store.  I believe that they had anything you could think of.  When you are this far from what we consider a real city, a store like this is like an oasis in the desert.  We did purchase a few things that we needed, including bear pepper spray, just in case we run into an unexpected bear along the way.  I’ve decided that if I cannot hit the bear with the spray, I’ll spray the pepper in my eyes so I won’t see what’s coming.

                    We are parked right off the nose of the further cruise liners.  There are 3 to 4 in port every day.

After touring the town we decided to take a drive out of town. There is only one other road in this town and it leads to Dyea Flats.  We had been told that there were bald eagles in that area.  We never saw any bald eagles but we did see some other interesting sites.  This was an area that the hopeful gold seekers landed during the gold rush of 1898.  This was the beginning of a long journey to the Klondike.  We visited the Slide Cemetery.  70 miners were killed on Palm Sunday, April 3, 1898 in an avalanche.  Many were very young and traveled from New York.  They never got to explore for gold.  But in reality very few ever reached their dream of becoming rich. Most of the good claims were already taken before the news got out about the gold to be had in Alaska and the Yukon.

We drove into the flats. This is one area where the salmon swim upstream to lay their eggs. During that time the area is covered with bears and bald eagles looking for the easy catch.  So we are a little early at this stopping spot but will be deeper in Alaska later this summer.  I plan on getting right in there with the bears and catching a few myself.   Watch for later blogs and see how I compete.  I will have to use my hands because my mouth is not that big (contrary to what you’ve heard). The road into the Flats was a little scary (even for Captain Bob) narrow, with over hanging rocks (VERY VERY large).  There was not much room for error, let alone an oncoming car. But we made it even though, we had our eyes closed.  Sharon decided right away not to give instructions because she did not want to drive.

wild iris on the Flats.

We went to the Charter House for dinner and called it a night.  A short night that is!  It’s day light here nearly 18 hours a day!  You wake up, get up, and check the time.  It’s 3 am so you go back to bed.