Back in my room at 2130 I sit at my laptop and wait for inspiration, and nothing comes. I watch a little TV, read a bit on my iPad and fall fast asleep. My lethargy undoubtedly brought on by my last beverage at The Skagway Brewing co. which was a Rusty Nail, a potent adult beverage (very tasty too) back home, but made more so in 'merica, the land of the free pour!

I jolt awake at 0113 with the story almost completely written in my mind, it is rush to get it all typed out. I don't understand why laptops don't have speech to text? My phone does! Can't be that hard? I get Day 6 typed and populated with images and published by 0330, then it is back to bed, sleeping with the clear conscience of a serial killer. Not really sure what that means, I read it somewhere and always wanted to use it.

I am back awake about 0700 and as we do not need to be at the tour bus location until, in my mind, 1015 I take the opportunity to do Day 7's submission. I have been consistently 1 day behind since I started, it took me a day to get back into writing, and it would be great to write about the day right after it happened!

I also do a little research about the Dalton Express, the tour to the Arctic Circle, Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay and the Arctic Ocean. I send them an email asking about availability for 2 intrepid adventurers!

I am just finishing up around 0945 when Bill mentions that we need to be at the tour office at 1000, but sadly I haven't even packed yet. He has been sitting, unbeknownst to me, by the bikes, with his helmet on, for prolly 20 minutes! Packing takes the usual 7 minutes, then I have to check out of this mo'tel, then we putt putt through town and park our bikes in the secure area at the Ferry Terminal and walk back to the tour bus place, arriving at 1012. See I always get my way!

From the tour office we have to walk all the way to the Cruise Ship dock, so the day started out with quite the hike! Actually, the day started when Bill brought me a muffin at 0800, so thoughtful!

Walking to the cruise ship area we were definitely Salmon swimming upstream against the flow of cruise ship tourists flooding into town. We eventually found the unique 1930's yellow tour buses, as we found out later heavily modded with modern underpinnings by no other than the late Boyd Coddington himself!



The guide mentioned their previous 1930's OEM buses had been sent to Yellowstone where I am pretty sure I rode one many years ago. Nowhere near as comfortable as these buses, especially as they required double clutching which was a driving technique beyond the skill of the Grandma at the wheel!

The tour guide was dressed in period petticoats and had all the usual jokes, but also a bit of an attitude that I quite enjoyed. The first joke was "How do you do a 2.5 hr tour of a town that's only a mile long? Well, first you never go faster that 10 miles an hour, flat out top speed for the buses. We frequently pull over to allow traffic to pass, don't want to create gridlock in Skagway!

We first drive the length of the town, down the Main Street called Broadway. It always cracks me up when small towns give themselves grandiose names like Broadway, or Rodeo Drive, or similar. I guess there ended up being a larger back story for that name, surrounding a colorful local character named Soapy Smith in the 1800's. Charismatic hood and gangsta, con artist and womanizer, shameless showman, Shaman and marketing genius. You can read all about him here.

Soapy's influence permeates all of Skagway's history. He is at times either glorified or vilified. He alternated between being the Mayor and being the Most Wanted. I am sure the passage of 100 years has allowed mostly positives to rise to the top. Every good story needs a villain, and for the good story of Skagway ours is Soapy Smith. After driving through the DT core we go out to the Gold Rush Cemetery where Soapy and the man who shot him dead lie in graves only 50' apart.

Frank Reid was stationed outside of a meeting (about Soapy) with orders not to let Soapy inside. Soapy showed up with a rifle, a brief gunfight ensued, both men were hit and both died. Frank Reid's large gravestone's engraving calls him a hero. Soapy Smith gravesite wasn't even allowed inside the Cemetery.





From the cemetery we head up a narrow pass to a view point above the town site, all the while our tour guide Peggy is regaling us with tales of how tough it was to be a prospector during the Gold Rush. The most ironical part is that people arrived in Skagway hearing tales of nuggets lying on the ground you could pick up by hand, in reality the gold was about 600 miles away in the Yukon. Dreams of getting rich quick were perpetuated by painting big rocks yellow for the gullible, and usually bribed, media.



The reality of the Gold Rush was that Canada would not allow you into the country unless you could prove you were properly outfitted for a minimum one year of prospecting/production. This took a monumental amount of effort to move men and materials the 600 miles, over several mountain ranges, to supply your camp and operation. Ultimately about 1% of prospectors really made it rich from gold. Most successful entrepreneurs were suppliers and outfitters.

The tour concludes with a drive through the 'suburbs' where the locals live, some with pristine yards, others with station wagons languishing in unkempt grass. Some of the numbers for Skagway are unreal: permanent residence of 450 swells to 2500 in the summer for tourist season. Record numbers forecast for 2016 with 1.278 million visitors of them 1.160 million arrive by cruise ship. 120 000 by all other means combined.

We find out the Sunday and Monday we were here there were only 2 ships in harbor, about 4500 tourists. Tuesdays and Thursdays they have 4 ships bringing over 9000 tourists to this sleepy little town! We didn't find anywhere crowded but doubling the population couldn't have helped.

Peggy concludes the tour where it started and fortuitously right next to the Skagway Fish Company where we have a spectacular lunch and a couple of pops.



Right outside the Fishco is the local Marina that sees 25 feet of tidal variation, not quite The Bay of Fundy, but still substantial. The floating docks ride up and down the guide shafts and the whole walkway moves as well.





We still have about 5 hours until the ferry sails so we ask the hostess to call us a taxi as we want to go to a gold panning attraction we saw outside of town. She calls them right in front of me and tells us to wait out front, which we do. We stand in the rain for at least 30 minutes before I go back inside to inquire as to the hold-up? She calls them again, right in front of me, and confirms they came by but we weren't there. We go back out, into the rain. Upon further reflection, we realize we have never actually seen a Skagway taxi, only these touristy buses called SMART. Skagway Metro Area Rapid Transit.



We wonder if this is what was called for us. We stand out in the middle of the parking lot and flag down the next one. When we board the driver radios in that 'he found the Fish Co. guys! I guess that's us! Maybe the hostess could have told us what a taxi looks like in Skagway? Any way when we tell him we want to go to the Gold Panning place, The Dredge, he asks if we are on a tour, which we are not.

He tells us they are no longer accepting drop ins today, so that kiboshes that deal! The other passengers on the bus were going to a place called the Jewel Garden so we got off there. It was a Botanical Garden with an artisan glass blower but you couldn't get past the gift shop without a pretty pricey admission. The merchandise was stunning and priced accordingly!



We elected to stand in the parking lot (in the rain!) and wait for the next bus instead. Standing in the rain was getting old and there was nowhere to sit so we relocated to the restaurant for an over priced organic natural organic herbal organic soda pop, free range of course!

That is one thing for sure, if you go to the 'Merican southwest it is cheaper to travel than in Canada, even with 25% exchange. In the North it is cheaper to travel in Canada than 'Merica, even without the exchange. Alaska's state motto should be "Welcome to Alaska, we hope you brought a large sack of money?"

Eventually, the SMART bus came by again and we convinced the driver to take us directly to the Ferry Terminal, even though it wasn't on his route. It was only about 1500 and we're supposed to get there at 1615 for the 1815 sailing. We go to our bikes at the front of the loading line and the first thing that is apparent to me is I should not have left my jacket, gloves and seat cover out in the rain all day, but it is too late to take back that decision.

Inside the ferry terminal, they have no wifi, no TV, no entertainment other than blown up newsprint about Soapy Smith and the Gold Rush covering the walls. (Psssst, BTW the Gold Rush didn't actually happen in Skagway, the rush of Gold Miners is what happened). Bill elects to read on his iPad, I elect to sleep on the floor taking advantage of one of my stupid human skills, (no, not dry heaving!) the ability to sleep anywhere at anytime under any circumstances. I lie down between some of the waiting area chairs and a wall and in no time I am asleep.

I sleep for a little over an hour which puts me only 2.0 hrs to departure time. The terminal is starting to fill up and there are many side conversations going on, including 2 couples talking to another couple on recumbent bicycles, and they are gathered around my sleeping hole! I wake up to see alternating pairs of hairy and smooth legs. I roll over and escape for another 30 minutes. The time ticks languidly forward and eventually we are called to be loaded.



We drive up the side of the side loading ferry and strap the bikes down with supplied ratchet straps. We were told the previous day when we booked passage that we had to bring our own tie downs as they were not supplied, and as such Bill sold me half of his rope, about 12 feet, for $2.50. Because we were in Alaska though, that was $2.50 USD. I found out later he bought the whole coil for about $6.00 CDN netting him a respectable margin. Once a shrewd businessman, always a shrewd businessman! Never used it, but no refund offered!



It was, in our opinion, a poorly designed car ferry. The ferries I have used in the past were RoRo's. Roll on and roll off, drive on one end, drive off the other. I have experienced a few side loaders along the way, but they still had 2 doors. This boat has only 1 doors so I am not sure how the unload is gonna go!

We see a lot of experienced ferry passengers brought pillows and sleeping bags aboard and are sleeping in the 'solarium' on the fantail. Bill briefly tries to emulate them, but ends up moving inside as it is just too windy and chilly and, well, I will leave it at that!



The crossing is only about an hour, I filmed the whole thing with my Gopro and my, somewhat lengthy, video is below. The problem is, nothing on a ship this big happens fast, and slow motion videos are boring, unless it is a bullet splitting a card, or something truly slow motion! Video of a 150m long ship doing a 1 - 80 is pretty dry! Here is the whole process, condensed to 8ish minutes and includes some pirate references!



Upon getting ready to disembark we see just how inefficient this ferry is as all the cars that drove on, have to reverse inside the ship until they can drive out the same door they came in. This includes many people towing trailers that aren't the best backer uppers.

There is a guy directing traffic and I offer him a dollar if we can be next, he does it for free and we are off the ship in under a minute. The ramp leads right to the highway that leads to Haines, AK 4 miles away. Not knowing what to expect when we landed I had made mo'tel reservations in advance. Google Maps could find our mo'tel, but couldn't place the ferry terminal so I had no way of know how to get from one to the other.

This picture isn't mine but Haines does look like a nice small town that could bear further investigation at some point. Sadly, based on the ferry schedule, it is only a wayside for us on this trip.



By the time the street signs started, as we were coming in from the highway, the first one I saw was 2 Ave which I knew was part of the Captain's Choice Mo'tel, 30 seconds later we're in the parking lot! Am I good or what, eh? Travel logistics are my thing!



The hotel is kinda neat as it is on multiple levels and overlooks the ocean. The rooms, naturally, have a nautical decor theme and use rope generously.



We check in and then walk briskly to the Light House Restaurant that may be closing in an hour. It is 5 minutes from our mo'tel and upon our arrival I try to enter the bar side but Bill wants to go to the 'Family Dining' area. After sitting there for 10 minutes and being largely ignored, Bill investigates the bar side, finds it much more suitable and we move over there for a great meal and some tasty adult beverages.

It is taking Bill longer than most to capitulate but eventually he will learn to 'Listen to Lou!'

Home by 2130 and despite having done little more today than stand in the rain, I am exhausted. I take my book and go to bed and read about 4 sentences before I realize the futility. Lights out, head down, cut and fade to black!

Skagway to Haines
32 kms today, 3484 thus far
90 minutes on the boat