We left Skagway on Friday. We flew in a small plane from Skagway to Juneau. This photo was taken from the plane. We flew at about 3500 feet through the mountains. It was beautiful!

Saying goodbye to Ashley, Skagway and all our new friends was really difficult. It was a great vacation and we are looking forward to returning.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this blog and viewing the photo albums as much as I have enjoyed recording our vacation.

Liarsville - Thursday, June 15

The company that Ashley works for has a Salmon bake at a place called Liarsville which is very close to Skagway. The salmon bake consists of a delicious meal of grilled salmon, rice, baked beans, and pasta salad. The grilled salmon was the best I have ever had. It was grilled over a wood fire and there was an optional sauce made with brown sugar. Then after the meal we saw a nice show with the actors in period costumes from the gold rush era. They sang songs and recited Robert Service poetry. The show was funny and we really enjoyed it. The young lady with Rick is Chrystal. She really made the experience fun. If you ever go to Skagway, consider the salmon bake! The food was delicious and the show was fun!

The Fjord Express

On Wednesday Rick and I took a tour with a company called the Fjord Express. We got on a catamaran (see the photo album for pictures) in Skagway, sailed to Haines to pick up a few more passengers and made our way to Juneau. On the way we saw waterfalls, lots of whales, sea lions, porpoises and Bald Eages. It was a beautiful trip! When we got to Juneau we transfered to a motor coach and after a short tour of Juneau, we had a couple of free hours to explore the capital city of Alaska. Then we re-boarded the motor coach and went out to the Mendenhall Glacier. We had about an hour to visit the visitor's center and view the glacier. There is a beautiful lake at the base of the glacier and when ice bergs calve off the glacier they float around in the lake until they melt. After the glacier the bus took us back to the boat and we returned to Skagway. On the return trip we saw more whales and eagles, a beautiful lighthouse and many more eagles. Thank you Captain Glen and crew member Gail for a wonderful trip!

Weather and Mosquitos

Just a short note about the weather. It has been around 50-55 degrees for most of our time here but on Saturday (helicopter day) it was 78 degrees, which tied the record for that day. The sun was shining all day and it was actually sort of hot. I got a little too much sun. Yesterday drizzled all day and today is the same. A little cool and drizzly.
I have only seen one mosquito. I was warned about them. I heard that they are huge and plentiful. But I think it might be a little too early for them. Plus it's really windy in Skagway. Skagway means "windy place" in the native language.
Today we are going on a couple of short hikes and I am making vegetable soup for Ashley and her co-workers. I loaded a new album last night so check it out. There are now two and I think I will have another one tomorrow.

Helicopter ride!

Yesterday Rick and I took a helicopter ride to the Chilkat glacier. It was an unbelievable experience. Thank you Paul Conti for encouraging me to take this excursion!
When you look up at the mountains from the town of Skagway they are beautiful and huge. But when you get up to about 9,000 feet in a helicopter and you look around you realize that those few little mountains that you can see from the ground are just a couple of the hundreds of snow-capped peaks in the Chilkat range. After about a 25 minute ride to the glacier, we landed on the glacier itself. I learned about how glaciers are formed and how they move. We drank water from the glacier and hiked for about 45 minutes before loading back in to the helicopters for our return to Skagway. On the return flight the pilot took us in close to a few of the mountains to show us snow slides and other glaciers in different stages of their lives. We were gone a little over two hours and it was unbelievably exciting.

There are photos of the helicopter ride in the photo albums.

We also went for a hike to a gold-rush era cemetery. The cemetery was interesting but there was a beautiful glacial waterfall near the cemetery that was the highlight of the hike. There are more photos of the waterfall in the photo albums.

Rick and I walked over 10 miles yesterday! Hiking is the preferred mode of transportation partly because everything is so close, partly because many of the best sights are not reachable by car, and partly because we didn't rent a car.

Skagway Day 2

Today we took an off road jeep tour. Only a small part of the tour was off-road but that was the best part! Paul, Helga would have crawled right up that mountain road but the terrain was a little rough for our Jeeps. We saw beautiful terrain in British Columbia and the Yukon Territory. It was a little cloudy on the way out but on the way back the sky cleared and we had beautiful views. We saw two bears, a lynx, mountain goats and various birds and little critters. We did not see any eagles. Notice the link on the left that says "Photo Albums"? Click on it for photos of yesterday's flight from Juneau and today's Jeep tour.

SKAGWAY!

Oh man oh man oh man.
I am speechless. Where should I start?
Ok first of all, no one say anything about the cold in Alaska because I had to scrape my windows before I left Averill Park! So we got on our first flight at 6am and at 6:15pm we were getting on our fourth and last plane of the day. The last flight was Juneau to Skagway. The Juneau airport is two gates plus the little planes. It makes Albany airport look huge. The plane was a 6 passenger including the pilot. Rick got to sit in the co-pilots seat and I sat in the second row. We flew at an altitude of 2280 feet. We flew between the mountains and we followed the Lynn canal all the way to Skagway. I lost perspective because the mountains were so huge and sometimes we were flying below the tops of them. When the flight was over I said, "that was great, let's do it again!"
I can't load pictures today because the wireless at the hotel is down. Grrrrrr
But tomorrow I will go to the wireless cafe if I have to.
I wish you were all here!