The long journey

Wednesday (a sleepy missive)
My eyes snapped open at 7am... but It was refreshing to know that I didn't need to actually drive anywhere. I wandered along the now empty streets, snapping a few photos before the cruise ships let out their cargo and all became chaos. Next to the hotel was a small stream that had a few beat up salmon still struggling to stay put, while their deceased cohorts formed fish-jams downstream. I remember a documentary where they talked about how important all the fish carcasses were to the overall ecology of Alaskan Streams. They leave as little tykes, get all large and nutritious out at sea, and then bring all that yumminess back into the streams to be decimenated to bear, bird, and plant once they've finished their spawning trip.

I returned to the hotel to meet mom for breakfast. The cook, who I'd struck up a conversation with the previous day, kept bringing out stuff just for mom & me.

We then hightailed it to a ranger talk "Food of the Gold Rush", which was a bit disjointed, but entertaining and informative nonetheless. Then, looking at the throngs of tourists raiding the diamond and fir shops, we decided to leave town.

The trip out was gorgeous, and as we went over White pass (There were two passes out of the area. The famous Chilkoot pass, which left from Dyea, and the White pass. The Chilkoot was for people carrying their own stuff. It was shorter and steeper than the White Pass. People took horses on the white pass, but plenty of 'em (horses) died. We're talking thousands. The rub was that after getting food (Canadian customs required each miner bring 2 tons --a year's supply-- so that they wouldn't be a burden on towns in Canada), traveling to Alaska, hauling food/equip up the pass (30-40 trips, each lasting a day), Waiting for the lakes to break so they could float another 600+ miles to Dawson City..... all the gold bearing streams were totally staked out.

ANYWAY, the pass was gorgeous, with powder-blue lakes interspersed with deep blue lakes, mixed with dramatic rocks and some tenacious trees. Wow.

The rest of the day we drove, and drove, and drove, and drove. Went through Canadian customs--pleasant. Went through Whitehorse, where we got some not-so-great KFC to eat further down the road. We ate over by otter falls, on a bridge that was out of order.
Somewhere along the way, we saw a couple caribou. Elsewhere, we passed Kluane Lake, and visited a really beautiful visitor center in Haines Junction. Also, in HJ, we grabbed ice cream cones at the Village bakery which looks like a really cool place in high season. They were going to close on the 6th. Everywhere we drive, there are places either closing down or about to close soon. Skagway, for instance, has its last cruise ships on the 26th, and more than one person is eager to board up and enjoy the silence.

Later that night, we passed American customs and got some wierd questions like how much money we had, how long I expect to be in school, and how mom was leaving the state. I expected that going into a foreign country, but not Alaska. Weird.
Then there were 47 miles of construction (still better than the 150 miles of AlCan in Canada just prior to the border) before Tok. WE got in after 1am local time and had to got to a few hotels before finding one that was open -Golden bear Motel. Along the way we stopped to look at the stars, with a great many constellations vying for attention.