And now finally, I am almost caught up. The date of this blog post is actually correct.
This morning was a bit of a whirlwind. There's this railroad that goes from Skagway up north. It does a few different tours. That is why we have come to Skagway. We got in too late last night to figure out when the tours would be going today though. Dad got up at 7:15 am to try to figure that out. The workers at the White Pass & Yukon Railroad ticketing office did not answer at 7:15, so Mom and Dad headed down to the actual train depot. They tried calling again on their way, someone picked up, and then Dad immediately got put on hold. He was on hold for quite a while. He walked into the depot on hold. He walked up to the office, and then hung up, and then he told the ticketing people he had been on hold. They were not doing anything. They were just sitting there. Mom and Dad did eventually figure out that there was only one train going out today. (There was only one cruise ship in today, and they hold very tightly to cruise ship scheduling. Nothing and no one else really matters.) That train was going out at 8:15 am. I don't know what time my parents got to the place and were finally talking to people, but I do know that the ticketing people said not to buy tickets unless everyone was there (Ashley and I were still asleep in the hotel), and I do know that Dad ran back to the hotel to get us up. He got back to the hotel at 8, Ashley and I brushed our teeth and put on respectable clothes, Mom grabbed mobile breakfast from our van, and we all ran back down to the depot. We made it. Even if the ticketing people were extra slow giving us our tickets. Ashley and I even got to grab some of their "gourmet" coffee. It was above average coffee. I don't know about "gourmet" though.
The train is definitely a touristy thing with cruise ship people being the ones the tours are catered to. However, it was well worth it, and it was way better than the Riverboat Discovery thing we went on in Fairbanks. They narrated up and back the 3 hour, 20 mile trip. We went up north to just past the US-Canada border, to White Summit, the place no one wanted to build customs/borders stuff. We saw a rather young (but not baby) black bear on the side of the tracks. It wasn't scared of the train at all. Hopefully it stays off the tracks. On the way back, we picked up some employees of the WP & YR. Three girls had been out in the wild the day before, last night, and today. We also picked up two other people who were up on the mountain side. There is a caboose that the National Parks Service has turned into a little lodge thing. People can stay up there and hike around and stuff. Pretty neat. We also saw some cool views of Skagway, the Chilkoot Mountains, Skagway River and it's Class 6, non-navigable rapids, and an old cemetery. It was pretty and relaxing and worth only having 7 minutes to get ready.
When we got back, we walked around the town a bit, trying to track down sourdough pancakes Mom wants to try and some silt for Ashley to take back. We failed at both endeavors and went to the grocery store to get the rest of the stuff we needed for lunch.
We ate lunch and now I am at Skagway Public Library. Connection to the outside world: YAAAAAYYYYY!!!! Hahaha. Anyways, I am trying to get caught up with the blogging. Words are almost done now...pictures...not so much. The library is only open for another hour, so I don't know how much more I'll get done, or how much longer I can sit here.
Here is the basic outline of the rest of our trip. First we are checking out if Hyder, AK has started their salmon run yet. All the salmon up here have been running about 2 weeks late which means we've seen all of one salmon so far. We would really like to see some bears munching on salmon (as disgusting as that would be). So, if they are running, and if there are bears, we are going to head south to Hyder. If there are not salmon or bears, we are going to head east.
East would be Canada. Canada would mean we cannot use our phones or we will have a ridiculously high phone bill when we get home. Hopefully there will be some internet access, so...email us if there is something urgent. Otherwise...we are meandering home. We are planning to stop in Jasper and Banff. They have a National Park there that is the prized Park of their system, much like Yellowstone is the prized Park of our system. Hopefully we won't be camping in 3 feet of snow, but it would be symmetrical... We don't know what else we're doing in Canada. I want to find a couple Starbucks to keep adding to my mug collection. Eventually we will make it to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Then we will be back in touch. Or...we will be able to be in touch, if we so chose. :)
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