Resting Up For BINGO!!

I took the entire day off yesterday.  Sort of.  A good portion of the morning was spent replacing drip lines in the yard, both front and back to the occasional boom of fireworks and the boom boom of a boom box down the street.  I can't complain since everyone STILL had their American flags flying high!!

So we are back to Alaska this morning, heading out of Skagway and on to Valdez.  To be honest, I would have stayed in Skagway the entire two months.  What a beautiful place.

I missed a couple of cool pictures from Dyea, just over the hill from Skagway proper.  Remnants of the town pictured below still exist amid the trees that have grown up in it's place.  Can you just imagine the mud?  At least someone built a hotel for the upper echelon folks.  

Not a big town by any means, but completely packed with people and supplies heading for Gold in the Yukon.  It began in 1896 with over 100,000 people heading over the hill to get rich.  By 1899 it was a bust as gold was discovered in Nome, which caused a rush to the new location.

THAT gold rush lasted a little longer, from 1899 to about 1909.  Today Dyea looks like this, a park perfect for an afternoon picnic.  Be sure and bring your mosquito spray.

Sadly, our diversion in Skagway was over as we headed back up the hill and over the mountain.  I never got tired of looking at the mountains.  

If you go this way, be sure to stop in Whitehorse at the Klondike Rib and Salmon.  Even if you don't like fish, be sure and order the halibut and chips.  No it's not cheap.  Nothing is in Alaska, but that didn't keep us from indulging!!  

Another great place to stop and visit is the Klondike paddlewheel.  Once you hiked up and over that infamous ice stairway into the clouds, you could hop on this baby for the trip up the river to your fortune in gold.  You can tour the entire inside of the boat and see where the rich had breakfast and dinner, as well as where the crew slept next to the hot boilers.

They were heading up the Yukon River along with hundreds of other boats ... almost on anything that would float.  

When they arrived at this extremely narrow channel, the water became like a garden hose.  With no way to provide power to get up the river, horses were used to carry supplies and boats along the wooden rails, as well as actually pull the boats through this channel.

It's amazing to see the distances they crossed.  I'm pretty sure the only ones that got rich were the guys selling supplies and pulling boats.

Isn't she a beauty?

Here's your view as a passenger from the top deck.  I rather imagine they hoped the Captain and crew knew exactly where to go in the channel.

Along the way you will find the Yukon Transportation Museum.  You might not think this would be a great place to stop, but the artifacts inside are amazing.  It's a must see.

Now THIS is what I was waiting for.  I think we only saw three moose the entire trip.  This guy was browsing the bottom of the pond for goodies.  The water also keeps the mosquitos off their legs.  

I don't remember the name of this RV park.  All I can say is DO NOT stay here.  We saw all the spaces ... gosh, lots of room!  Let's stay here!!  See that tiny little white ramp to the right of my rig?  That's a 9' wide rickety bridge we crossed with our 8' wide rigs.  SCARY!!  

With so many bugs and mosquitos, we immediately grabbed our buckets and washed off ten pounds worth.  In no time some guy came running down screaming at Dan NOT to wash anything with their water.  I mean really, he came unglued.  Okay then .........

But the MAIN reason not to stay here is the location next to the swamp where billions of mosquitos live.  I finally sprayed the edges of my door and the screen itself to keep them out.  The good thing is they are so huge, they fly very slow and so are easily whacked!!!

The lesson ... never stay in an RV park where no one ELSE is staying.

Sadly, I don't remember where we had this humongous burger.  Dan and I had dueling burgers at almost every stop.  He won every time.  

Luckily, we had very little rain our entire trip.  Here we are heading up and over the mountains to our next stop, Valdez.

I got a little worried when I saw exactly where we were going.   This is a very high, steep Valdez Mountain pass where you drive right by a glacier on the way.  

The blue ice is a dead giveaway, and although this is a telephoto picture, you can actually walk right up to the edge on the trail.  

That's as far as we're going today.  I'm trying to get the fence guy to finish up.  Yup it's been three months and my back fence is STILL not complete.  It needs the railing on the top.  

In the meantime, this little dinosaur of a guy scared me to death last night.  He's been living in the bushes in the back yard.  I caught him once or twice on the sidewalk.  THIS time as I went around the corner, I surprised HIM, until he ran right over my foot making me dance like a little girl.   Nothing like having a lizard run across your foot!!

And of course it's BINGO night, so I'm in the gearing up process.  I'm pretty sure the players will be a little more bold tonight since they are back in their routine.