Skagway and Haines

 Next port day is Skagway. We dock early and have a great experience with the next excursion. We need the passports for this one because

we’re crossing over the border out of the US, toward Canada even
though we’re not entering Canada per se. Apparently there is a no man’s land of about 20 miles between the two borders here. Our excursion is to White Summit Pass where one of the most used passes into the Yukon territory for the gold rush. We didn’t get to see Dead Horse Gulch where you’re still supposed to be able to see bones from all the horses that died on this trek. The view is beautiful and for the

first time, John isn’t randomly stopped and searched when we pass through customs and back into the US. Our tour guide has lived in Skagway area for 20 years and is finally getting tired of the cold and inaccessibility…..she’s thinking about retiring to a beach somewhere and I can’t imagine living here….I mean I already live in the wilds of Michigan and that’s cold and inaccessible enough for me. We get to walk around Skagway, get a junior ranger book for Oscar to fill out while we hang out at the Skagway Brewery to get flights of all their beers. John is making a ton of progress in trying all the craft brews in Alaska on this trip. He can only have sips of them and rate them on his app though because we have to get a consult when we get home about surgery for the hernia…..carbonated yeasty beverages are not good for him right now, so I’m drinking a lot of beer instead. Oscar finishes his booklet and gets another badge for the Gold Rush National Park that’s here. We walk over to the side dock to see the huge rock slide that cut

off one of the docks here. We get back on the ship and are running late to leave the dock because there’s an excursion that hasn’t come back yet. An hour and some odd after we were supposed to have left, we finally do, but it means like two hours in Haines when it’s getting dark. We just get off the boat in order to look at some of the shops that have stayed open for our late boat and then head back to get to sleep.