September 12, 2010
This morning we had a little time to kill so what do we do??? Shopping!!!! Juneau has oodles of shops, open even on Sundays right now because they're expecting 3 cruise ships. Don't want to be closed with all those people roaming around! Three cruise ships is pretty mild I hear; usually during the summer its 5-8 ships a day. That's a lot of tourists!!! Even so, most shops didn't open until 10:00. Jacky decided to go to WalMart and pick up some meds for me - still have a really bad cold and coughed all night - and also to pick up another bag to put all the stuff we keep buying in. Yes, we all know we're supposed to leave room in the suitcase coming over for things we buy but it never quite works out that way. Lee was saying she's been known to wear three hats on the plane, one on top of the other, to get them home. Most of the other people on our tour are having the same problem. We're all thinking we'll be wearing several layers of clothes on the plane because they won't fit in our suitcase! I just hope its cold when we leave.
Finally it's time to board our next ferry -'The Fairweather'. It is a smaller ferry than our last one and is known as the 'fast ferry' because it goes to Skagway nonstop in 2 1/2 hours. It is a catamaran meaning it doesn't
have a round hull as you can see from the picture. Another ferry makes stops along the way and it takes 6 hours.
We were glad to climb on and get on the way. I must admit, I might have snoozed a little on this trip. It was beautiful scenery, a narrow passage with mountains rising on either side. However, I still was feeling pretty puny so closed my eyes for a minute and all of a sudden we were 15 minutes away from town!
Skagway is, in Lee's words, a quaint little Disney town. It lies nestled at the base of numerous mountains. There are no houses lining the shores, or electrical cables, or buildings of any sort. It is kind of fair-tale-ish. What started as the Klondike Gold Rush is now a town filled with tourists in the summer and 800 people the rest of the year. I likes the boardwalk sidewalks, and of course all the little shops along the way. I'll try to avoid them tomorrow.
We ate at a local Thai restaurant as a change in all the salmon we had been eating. It was very good...and spicy! It must not have been quite hot enough because I still couldn't stop coughing. Oh well, tomorrow is another day. We're staying at Sgt. Preston's Lodge right in the middle of town. It's a very nice place, but no free Internet access. For those who don't know, Sgt,. Preston was with the Canadian Mounties. When the gold-diggers would come up unprepared for living up in Alaska and died early on, the Canadian Mounties set up a station around Skagway to make sure each prospector set out with a minimum amount of food and clothing to give them a chance at surviving. We'll learn more about it tomorrow.
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