Day 23

Skagway, Alaska

We left Tagish this morning at about 8:15. We hadn’t gone far when we saw our first wildlife of the day: this porcupine. The only animals we saw today were 2 porcupines, and lots of rabbits. It was a beautiful drive again. Some of the lakes are frozen over completely, some had started to thaw, and a few were ice free. Even so the beauty almost overwhelmed us. The day was partly cloudy and Cindy got some great shots.

The road had a few bad spots, which were well marked and we were able to slow down in time. The rest of the road was good except for all the photo turnouts. LOL The stretch of highway from  Carcross to Skagway is at a fairly high altitude, and some places we were able to see where there had probably been 10 feet of snow. We didn’t go into Carcross, but probably will when we go back toward Whitehorse.  From what we could see from the main highway it looked like it probably will be worth a stop. 

We passed another welcome to the Yukon sign, and stopped for pictures. We noticed one of Eddie’s trailer tires looked low. He checked it and it was down to 25 pounds. The front one was hot, we pumped it up and he made it to the RV Park in Skagway, but it was low again. He took it off and found a nail. The RV Park last night was a large grass field, and we feel that he probably picked the nail up there. We asked about a tire repair store in Skagway, and found out there isn't one. So we went to the hardware store and bought a tire repair plug kit and fixed the tire. I decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to carry one so I bought one also.  Eddie doesn't have a tire monitor on his rig, and I told him I thought it might be a good idea to invest in one.

We stopped at the welcome to Alaska sign at the top of a long down grade, and took a lot of pictures. We had finally made it to Alaska. There were 4 girls stopped there taking pictures and we offered to take pictures of all of them, and asked them to take some of all of us.

The next 11 or so miles are downhill at 11% in some places. We made it to the Customs Inspection Station. We had got some firewood in Alberta, and they took it away from us, but we had no other problems.

We got checked into the RV Park, and Cindy and Barbara went for a walk, while Eddie and I found the hardware store to buy the kit and came back and fixed the tire.

Eddie made friends with Nick, the campground owner, and he took Eddie to his shrimp trap. He told us we could have tomorrows catch of shrimp. He said there would be probably be about 24 good size shrimp, and showed Eddie how to remove them from the trap and get them ready to cook. Can you imagine fresh cooked shrimp?

After we all came back to the RVs, Cindy and I wanted to go see some more of the town and get some fuel, since we had found it was less here than in Canada. We Paid $4.65 per gallon for diesel and bought $198.00 worth. We found some interesting old buildings and just looked at some of the sights.

I'm sorry, but some of the pictures re not in the order we saw them, but I wanted to include them in this post.

Part of the long downgrade.

The Milepost book said this was remnants of old gold mining days.

Part of the narrow gauge railroad from Skagway to Whitehorse.

This looked to be about 10 feet high.

More of the downgrade.

Neat old building in Skagway. It hasn't changed in the 16 years since we we here last.

Part of the harbor.

Here we are parked at the Pullen Creek RV Park.

We then went out to get lunch. We went to a place that had Halibut or Salmon fish and chips. They were a little pricey at $15.00 each, but were good and filled us up. Cindy wanted to used the Alaska Tour Saver book for a Halibut Buffet, but Nick told us he personally wouldn't go to it, so we went where we did.

 These prices scare me!

You might be a Red Neck if.......

 We bought the Kit on the one above, and the pattern from the one below at Rushin' Tailors Quilt Alaska. They have some of the material special made for their shop.

 After lunch we went up to the old cemetery. Most of the graves were marked that the person had died at the end of the 1800’s or early 1900’s. One thing I noticed was that most had died in their forties, with very few living any longer. We decided to walk up to Lower Reid Falls, which is just above the cemetery. Cindy got lots of great photos. By the falls, the temperature was probably 25 or 30 degrees lower. The water coming off the falls was very cold.

This leaf was stuck to the tree and was kind of leathery.

We thought this old house was interesting. There was an old ambulance parked in front that looked like it could have came from M.A.S.H.

Some of the flowers are in bloom.

 That was about it for the day. We only drove 96 miles today and with all the stops, it only took us 4 hours. We are staying until at least Monday morning. Thanks for visiting.

Here we are going across this bridge.