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August 19, 2007

North to Alaska Day 11-Travel Day to Palmer

Filed under: Alaska Adventure — Gary @ 5:45 pm

Monday June 4 2007 was spent driving north off the Kenai through Anchorage and up to Palmer. Palmer is what I consider our base camp while in Alaska. It is where the Gusinsky’s lived while Pop worked on the oil rigs on the north slope until we moved to Washington over 30 years ago.

The 245 mile drive took most of the day. Just as we were about to leave Jay and Kathy’s at Ocean Bluff Bed and Breakfast and head to Karen’s at Alaska Garden Gate Bed and Breakfast it began to rain and during the trip through the montains it was raining hard.

We stopped off at the cross road where the game refuge is and also the tunnel through the mountain to Whittier. There is a state park there so we stopped off to look at the glacier, the lake with ice bergs floating in it and the tunnel.
Not long after heading north from the state park next to the Turnagain arm, the rain stopped and the sun came out so the rest of the drive was a nice one. I had called Karen while we were enroute to see if she would be willing to cook up some salmon that we caught yesterday for supper for everyone.

She was already cooking for a German couple that are also staying at the B&B I said there was plenty for them if they wouldn’t mind the company that I wouldn’t either. So it was a dinner date.

We stopped in Palmer at the world famous Fred Meyer to get some fixins for the salmon and of course some beef stew. How is the Fred Meyer in Palmer world famous you are wondering?

About 6 years ago there was an article in the local paper here in Everett Washington, The Herald picked up a story that was about Palmer women finally going to be able to buy underwear in town instead of going to the next town north, wasilla, to get some undies. Funny thing was when Uncle Eric and I were up in Palmer to visit our Grandfather and Grandma Wanda I mentioned the article and there was still no underwear in the store so the women still had to go to Wasilla, lol! Do not worry, they now have chicks underwear at the Freddy’s in Palmer.

So once we got to Karen’s we met the German folks, Christian and Simone, and unpacked we started in on supper. Cooking salmon and some razor clams plus other fixins.

Supper was grubbin and we just sat around and talked. As it turns out Christian is an airplane buff so we talked and talked about Boeing and Airbus. We enjoyed our selves very much and it always feels like home when you stay at Karen’s. This was our third stay there and I can’t imagine staying anywhere else in Palmer.

It had been a long day so it was off to bed in the broad day light by 10pm so we could get an early start tomorrow treking around the Matanuska Valley. The weather is looking good for the next few days but that is subject to change.

Check out the pictures that go with this day in the photo sets on the left of the home page. Click North to Alaska Day 11 for the Travel Day to Palmer.

Business Broker

North to Alaska Day 10-Razor Clamming and King Salmon Fishing

Filed under: Alaska Adventure — Gary @ 1:32 pm

Day 10 on the Gusinsky family unit’s Alaskan adventure was all about fishing. The men all are to go king salmon fishing on the kasilof river and the women and Nik are to go razor clamming on a beach in Ninilchek just south of Clam Gultch.

We slept well in the cabin, I got up early to write in my journal while sitting in front of a huge bay window on a bar stool over looking the Cook inlet from our bluff view. The snow capped peaks across the water were great to look at as bald eagles flew feet from the bluff in front of me.

Went into the main house around 8am and Jay was cookin up some breakfast for us all. That was our first real home cooked meal in over a week and it was good.

Once we ate, we packed up and took off for Clam Gultch lodge where we met our guide Gary who lead us to a beach on the Cook Inlet near Ninilchek for the razor clamming.

I was willing to trade my salmon for anyone’s razor clams. None of the flatlanders (Michelle, Wayne, Eva, Doug or Diane;Michelle isn’t a flat lander anymore but got lumped into that group) had ever had razor clams. At first I thought I was gonna come up with the deal of the century with a trade of salmon for razor clams but they figured the clams must be something so they stuck to keeping their limits. Good choice.

Razor clams are one of the bestest seafoods you can possibly get. it has to be prepared properly which is tough when on vacation but we managed, lol. This salmon for razors deal is always a standing deal I am offering at anytime to anyone!

Our guide lead us out to this beach where we had to drive the truck in the sand and gravel to a clamming spot. It was fun 4×4ing along the beach. Then the girls and Nik put on barn boots and arm legth rubber gloves for clamming. He brought along shovels and clam guns. prior to the trip I was asked how you got the clams and I said you use a gun……….they didn’t believe me, image that!

A clam gun is a piece of metal tube about 4 inches in diameter that has a cap on top. Welded to the enclosed to portion of the tube is a longe tee handle that has a small hole at the top. You look for a dimple in the sand or a neck sticking out of the sand, place you gun over the top, wiggle the tube into the sand till you have it full, cover the small hole with your thumb and pull the tube out. Once you have the tube out of the ground you release your thumb from over the hole, the sand falls out and you grab your clam. Repeat!

We all have licenses but we only paid the guide for 3 plus Nik was free. each person is allowed 60 clams each, that is darn good. We all ended up going out on the beach and dug a few but the girls did most of the clam harvesting. The guy’s fishing trip wasn’t until 2 in the afternoon so we had some time to watch and partake in the clamming fun.
I think everyone had a great time clamming. It is quite an experience, easy to do and fun fun fun. But the hard part of razor clamming is the cleaning. It is a lon process to get them cleaned out of guts and sand. I asked Gary our guide if the price included dressing them out, it did not but he said their was a service that would do it for $25 per limit. That is worth every penny and I said we would do that!

After getting the girls and Nik got their limits we dropped off the clams to this old sourdough for cleaning and the guys drove back north to the Kasilof river and the girls and Nik kept on south to Homer for some sight seeing.

Homer is the town that is furthest south on the Kenai and is known as the halbut fishing capital of the universe……..next trip to Alaska I will be doing that. But the girls saw the sites including the crabbing boat The Time Bandit from one of our favorite TV shows, The Deadliest Catch. Okay, it was a model of the boat but it was cool!

They got back to the B&B after a full day clamming, playing around in Homer and getting the clams. Layin around elaxing is a good thing to which is what they did for the rest of the evening while the fellas were on the river.

The men trucked up to the bridge crossing the Kasilof river to meet our guide. We were early, he was late. But we were ready to have some rod bending fun so once we got under way we didn’t really care.

the river was beautiful and although the kings have not arrived in full force there were some fish to be caught. The Kasilof is the next river south of the Kenai just without all the knuckle draggers on it. Everyone goes to the Kenai and the Kasilof seems to get a bit neglected, if you wanna call it that.

Uncle Doug hooked the first fish and the fight was on. Everyone caught some kings and the river full of good times for us. The scenery was great and the experience of an Alaska fishery will never be forgotten.

We started around 2:45 in the afternoon so we could fish the in coming tide and what a tide it was. That area of the world gets some of the largest tides there are and we werre fishing on a pretty good minus tide so when it reversed and flooded in……..amazing how much water and how fast and then when it went back out, incredible.

We ended up keeping only 4 fish, all kings. Two we sent with our guide, actually we sent three with him, one was a small jack he was going to use for halbut bait. Of course Wayne caught that one, he always manages to catch the smallest fish or an endangered specie. The other we brought home and would have it for supper the next night up in Palmer.

I wasn’t going to ship home salmon that I go out and catch myself, not at the rates of over night air. Itwas expensive enough just for the trip, I wasn’t going to have salmon in my freezer that amounted to $60 per pound or some crazy thing. It was about the experience and it was a good one.

We didn’t get home till midnight and it was stil llight out of course, it doesn’t get totally dark this time of year, about as dark is it gets is a light dusk evening. And the further north we go, the more light it will be at night.

The weather was good to us on this day, no rain, we even had some sunshine that qualified as warm. Hope the rest of the trip’s weather jolds to this standard.

Tomorrow we head north to palmer where Uncle Eric was born and where we lived when we were in Alaska. Check out the pictures that go with this day in the photo sets on the left of the home page. Click North to Alaska Day 10 for the fishing and clamming pictures.

Business Broker

North to Alaska Day 9-Whittier Alaska/Disembark

Filed under: Alaska Adventure — Gary @ 5:34 am

The Diamond Princess made landfall at 12:30am on Saturday 2 June 2007 marking the end of our sea voyage but the beginning of our land trek around Alaska. Before bedtime Friday night all luggage was taken away and magically appeared at our destination in Anchorage.

We were scheduled to disemabark the ship at 8:15am so it was up early, dressed and off to our last breakfast buffet. Our group was off the ship and onto our motorcoach by 9:10 and on way shortly after that.

To get to Anchorage from Whittier, a coastal town on the Kenai penninsula, we would have to go through a 2.5 mile long tunnel through a mountain. Whittier was a secret base during WWII for supplying Alaska and the northern defense with weapons, food and ammunition thanks to its ice free harbor. The tunnel used to be by rail only and to get in or out of Whittier you had to load up your vehicle on rail cars. But a just a few years ago it was redone so vehicles could drive through safely.

After we were off the ship I told everyone who had not been to Alaska that now they were really gonna see Alaska. Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway are in Alaska but are not “in” Alaska. Take a look at a map. They are more Canadian coast than anything else.

It is a one way tunnel so traffic goes one way for 20 minutes, then switches for the other. But if a trail has to pass through, all vehicles must wait. It was quite a neat ride through the mountain. As it turns out the Anton Anderson memorial tunnel is the longest one way vehicle tunnel in North America.

We had a good driver who pointed out many sites and things of interest on the 2 hour ride up to Anchorage along the Turnagain Arm including what he thought we dall sheep but were actually mountain goats but there were many on the rocky bluffs and cliffs along the way.

Once in Anchorage we were dropped at the Princess hospitality center which was much better than the airport since the rental car outfit was a short walk up the street. If ever going to Alaska and you need to rent a vehicle, book many months in advance. I got 2 Chevrolet Trailblazer type SUVs rented for about $420 each for 8 days, 11 months in advance. I double checked 2 weeks before we departed on our reservation and checked out the current price………..it was over $1200 for each vehicle at that point. Yes, 1200 clams each and I ain’t talkin razor clams either! It pays to plan and do things long in advance……..generally.

So after getting our trucks and loading up, we did what any red blooded American would do. We went to Wal-Mart! Had to get our supplies for the drive aroung Alaska. We were just gonna eat out of a cooler. You know, sandwiches and canned stew over looking a river valley with a massive mountain range in the back ground as moose wandered by. So we needed all the supplies to do that plus fishing licenses for the big fishing trip tomorrow.

It is going to be a huge shock after eating king crab, prime rib, sea scallops, lobster and these other high times foods to sanwiches and canned stew!
After hitting Wal-Mart and of course Fred Meyer for the best canned stew you will ever have. Have you guys ever had Fred Meyer brand canned stew? Try it out when you need canned stew. It truely is the best, loads of meat, potatoes and carrots but the kicker is that there isn’t that 1 inch thick layer of lard on top when you open the can.

So we were east bound and down, loaded up and truckin. And boy were we loaded up, you woulda thought we were moving to Alaska! We made our way through town and south to get back on the Kenai penninsula to Kasilof (Kas-see-lof) where we would be staying at a bed and breakfast.

Our trip to Kasilof was the same route that we just came after leaving the ship and right where you get on the Seward highway after exiting the tunnel from Whittier is an animal refuge where they have moose, deer, elk, bison, musk ox and bears. So we swung in there to check out the animals. It was a neat stop.

Our trip to Kasilof was very nice. so many sites to see. You never know what is around the next corner. Mountains, rivers, valleys or moose. We saw many moose but they out number the people in Alaska so it stands that you will see some in your travels and boy did we ever.

We arrived at Ocean Bluff bed and breakfast and met Jay and Kathy, the owners. What nice people and what a great place. Michelle, Nik and I took the cabin that was 16 feet from the bluff over looking Cook inlet from 70 feet above the water facing 3 active volcanoes. The water was finally running out there as the ground had just thawed so the pipes weren’t frozen, it was the 2nd of June remember and this is Alaska! Everyone else had rooms in the house. Our Alaskan road trip was starting off fantastic!

We will miss the food on the ship since it was plentyful and of the expensive high falutin type but it will be great to get out an see Alaska in the coming days. Tomorrow is the big king salmon fishing trip and a razor clam dig.Check out the pictures that go with this day in the photo sets on the left of the home page. Click North to Alaska Day 9 for those pictures.

August 12, 2007

North to Alaska Day 8-College Fjord

Filed under: Alaska Adventure — Gary @ 5:55 pm

The 1st of June 2007, our last full day on the ship is spent cruising up the Gulf of Alaska to Prince William Sound and into College Fjord. There are 15 glaciers in the fjord that are named after prominent colleges on the east coast. Schools such as Havard, Dartmouth, Amherst, Yale, Columbia and Vassar to name a few. The explorers who named these glaciers back in the day took great joy by not naming one Princeton.

Most of the day was spent cruising north, the actual galcial view would be in the late afternoon and if you stayed on deck to see them all, we would miss our normal 5:45pm seating for supper. So we ended up missing the seating for supper to check out the glacial festivities.

There were many sea otters, by the hundreds, loads of eagles and even a few seals to be seen in addition to the wilderness. By the time we got to the end of the fjord and started our trek back to Prince William Sound and then north to dock in Whittier on the Kenai penninsula at around 12:30am it was well past 7pm.

Uncle Eric and I got dressed and went to our normal table in hopes of being able to sit there and see our outstanding waiters, Mr. Wii and Sombat, one last time. The huge sea scallops on the menu had nothing to do with it at all, lol.

Earlier in the day they had a cooking presentation in the main lounge at the front of the ship where the head chef and the maitre’de put on a very funny show while the head chef cooked up the main attraction for the nights supper. Jumbo sea scallops. It looked fantastic.

So as it turned out, being seated was no problem and of course we got treated like returning royalty. They brought us extra thick cuts of prime rib and heaping bowls of jumbo sea scallops. It was quite a send off.

The cruise was an absolute joy, we had untold amounts of fun and saw so many incredible things. It was unreal and we can’t wait to get back some day soon.

Tomorrow we off load and start the land part of the Gusinsky Family Alaska Adventure. To see pictures of this day click North to Alaska Day 8-College Fjord on the left of the home page.

North to Alaska Day 7-Glacier Bay National Park

Filed under: Alaska Adventure — Gary @ 1:34 pm

May 31 2007 was spent cruising Glacier Bay National Park. The only way to the park is by boat or plane (unless you are Bear Grylls, Google it), so we decided to take a really really big boat and bring along over 4000 people. I slept in again until nearly 4am, so much luxury on this vacation, I am not sure I will be able to get back intothe swing of working!

I walked on deck after getting some coffee, chatted with the usual suspects that are up on deck at 5am, took pictures, video and tried to imagine where I was at in the world. After a short while a boat appeared off in the distance and was making it’s way towards us very fast. As it approached I realized it had the National Park Rangers onboard that were to give us tour of the park.

They had unloaded 3 rangers and their gear in a less than 3 minutes and they were off towards shore. After looking at a map we must have been just inside the park entrance near Gustavus Alaska by Bartlett Cove. 99% of the people on board are still snoozing at this time, but I find it some of the best times to be on deck to see the sites with next to nobody around trying to imagine what this place looked like 250 years ago when Russian, British and Spanish explorers were mapping this area to claim it for their countries.

From what I have read, it is not that much different, other than the glaciers have retreated. Although that is not totally true, some of the glaciers and ice fields have actually advanced in the last 60 years, not many, but some have.

Okay, enough history, let’s talk Glacier Bay National Park and the glaciers. There are many glaciers here but the big kahuna is Marjorie. Actually it is not the largest but it is right on the water and most accessable to a nearly 1000 foot long cruise ship.

As the morning got later people started to show up out on deck, there were glaciers up on the mountains in the distance but none at waters edge at this point. There were plenty of rivers and water falls coming off mountains that came straight out of the sea. Both sides of the fjord, was at times, rock face walls with a spruce tree growing here or there and sometimes with a bald eagle in it.

After spending sometime writing in my journal it was time to get the family go to breakfast and then stay up on deck watching the sites go by. You just never knew what you were gonna see, I didn’t want to leave the deck. It was cold though, you had to dress the part. You could get blankets and they had people going around selling hot chocolate and warm liqueurs, I just bought a bucket of beer for the day. Didn’t need the ice but they put it in anyway, lol.

The captain took us up Johns Hopkins Inlet and the park rangers took over from there descibing the area and giving loads of information about the mountains, rivers, wildlife and of course, the glaciers.

The first glaciers we passed were the Reid, Lamplugh and finally to Johns Hopkins which is at the end of the fjord. On the south side of the fjord are a few peaks ranging from 6,800′ to 8,750′ but to the north are 6 mountains ranging from 11,750′ to the enormous Mount Fairweather at 15,300′, all within 20 miles of us.

These glaciers were awesome and after the captain turned the ship around to head back out of the fjord we got to see them all again but we had no idea what were about to see at the end of the Tarr Inlet once the captain made his way up it.

After making our way out of Johns Hopkins Inlet we steamed for Tarr Inlett. Lots of mountains, rivers and such to see but no glaciers other than the ones on the sides of the mountains in the distances. We had been following another cruise ship since I came on deck in the morning and we seemed to back off so they could get some distance from us, guess the captain didn’t want to pressure them while their passangers were checking out the ice.

So the going was slow up the Tarr Inlett but I wouldn’t leave the deck. We just hung out seeing whatever there was to see, then we cleared a point of land and there it was. A massive glacier that was a sheer ice wall right out of the sea. We were quite a distance away and if you looked close you could see this “little” ship parrallel to it, it was the cruise ship we were following checking out Marjorie. We slowed to a crawl so the ship had time to look at get out of their before we swooped in.

The word spread quick that we were closing in our destination and people started to fill the deck. Marjorie is at the end of the fjord. To the right of Marjorie is the Grand Pacific Glacier and it is one of those advancing glaciers but it wasn’t as impressive on the water as Marjorie.
The Grand Pacific Glacier has advanced about 5 to 6 miles since 1925 and crossed the border back into the United States, it is a legal border crossing as it has rights to this passage since the last ice age over 150,000 years ago. But the star here is definitely Marjorie and people are starting to pack the rail to get a glimps of the massive piece of ice.

One of the rangers came on the loud speaker and said when the ship gets up to the glacier the captain would hold the ship in place parallel with Marjorie for about 45 minutes and then spin the ship so the other side could see and then 45 minutes later we would get under way. I had already stacked out a piece of rail by a wind break but it was on the starboard side and Marjorie would be on port first. But there was plenty to see plus all you had to do was look across the beam of the ship and Marjorie towered above us even 500 yards away.

As the other cruise ship started to pull away, Nik kept people entertained by yelling “Ice berg, dead ahead”! There were huge chuncks of ice from the glacier everywhere. So he was saying it often, lol.

Finally we pulled along side the glacier and wow does not say enough about the sheer size and power the ice holds. People were lined up 4 or 5 deeo along the rail to get a glimps of Marjorie, we just stayed on our side waiting for the ship to spin while looking from afar.

At one point I decided to walk over towards that side, i had my video camera going so I could get some video of the cattle call against that railing when all of a sudden a massive wall of ice started to slide into the sea. The sound was incredible and the crash into the water was gargantuan. The wake it generated was huge, it did nothing to the Diamond Princess but a smaller vessel that looked to be a 50 to 60 foot boat was bucking the waves. I got it on video and it calved 2 more times to my delight.

What I saw was incredible and I couldn’t wait till the ship spun and we were on the rail in the front row for the big show. Eventually, that time came and the ship slowly spun in place, the people all moved from one side to the other but alas, we had our box seats center ship front row for the ball game.

There was the occasional piece of ice, I say piece of ice but these pieces are the size of a 1 ton chevy but weigh much more. We heard huge cracking sounds coming from the glacier some where back of the water but in the 45 minutes we were there, no huge calving.

We were a bit disappointed but it was a non stop glacier watching experience that was a lot of fun and I can not wait to get back there. It is kind of ironic everybody wants to see massive pieces of ice calve off into the sea but what you are really seeing is the death of the glacier as it melts and recedes until eventually it will no longer exist.

The show was over and people made a mass exoduse off deck but I just couldn’t leave, The Gusinskys’ stayed until Marjorie was all but out of site. It was after lunch by this time so we made our way to the pizza parlor for some fresh made pizza. At that time a park ranger walked by with the cruise director and it hit me. I had Nik’s National Park passport book and I had not gotten his stamp for the park. I asked the ranger how I could get my son’s passport stamped and he said if I hurried to the Sun deck the rangers there could stamp the book, so I rushed off and got the stamp. That was close. In all the excitement I totally forgot about the stamp.

So we were making our way for the Gulf of Alaska in the Pacific Ocean. Dinner tonight is another formal affair and it is lobster night. Oh man, lobster time, I hope they have enough!

For the pictures that go with this day in the photo sets on the left of the home page. Click North to Alaska Day 7 - Glacier Bay National Park for pictures.

August 11, 2007

North to Alaska Day 6 - Skagway

Filed under: Alaska Adventure — Gary @ 4:51 pm

Wednesday May 30 2007 is our last port of call untill we disembark in Whittier Alaska on the Kenai Penninsula and that port is the famous Skagway. Skagway has 850 full time residents but on this day the population swells to over 15,000! Skagway is the 16th most visited port in the world all because of the cruise industry and with ships averaging 3500 people onboard that number goes up quickly. The Diamond Princess contributed over 4000 people on this day including crew. Today is one of the busiest of the season so the town would be crowded and excusions packed.

But I fell into an outfit that would help us avoid all that and give us a one of the great memories of the trip. Originally I booked a train ride from Skagway up over the mountains into British Columbia and then we would take a motor coach to Carcross in the Yukon. This trip was nearly $200 per person but it was an all day event that included lunch, site seeing and gold panning.

But I noticed there was a suspension bridge along the way and I was concerned the train wouldn’t stop or we would be on the wrong side for some great pictures. So i wanted to see about going to the suspension bridge as well after the train ride excursion. I found the expansion bridge web site and emailed them about entry and how to get there. They gave me a link to a guide service based in Skagway who I called. After talking with the gal on the phone I came to realize a short time later that this is who I wanted to go out and about with when we arrived in Skagway.

This company, Frontier Excusions, would take us and only us in some SUVs farther into the Yukon where we would see more and be on our own schedule for $200 a person and only $100 for Nik. I knew the gusinsky’s would be doing this and after talking it over withthe rest of our party they concured as well.

So on the day we arrived in Skagway Alaska I slept in agan to around 4:35am, got up and went on deck. We were steaming between two sets of high hills that were snow capped. As we rounded a bend there at the end of the fjord was the small town of Skagway pressed up to the water by the front of some mountains and next to the Skagway river. So of course i took loads of video and pictures as we docked.There were already two other cruise ships tied up close to the river and two others followed us in shortly after we tied up.

I got the family unit up early and went to have breakfast, it was going to be a long day. once we had grubbed, i got off the ship to see if our drivers were out waiting for us and sure enough they were, so I ran back on board and 20 minutes later we had everyone ready to go, it was shortly after 8am.

After driving into to town to settle our bill we got under way, I was a bit sticker shocked on our $500 bill plus tax but I got Alaska Air miles so it eased up the pain a bit. Little did I know at the time the cost would be a non issue at the end of the day.

Once we got under way in our 2 ford excusions, 4 people to a truck, the sceanery was nearly instant; Mountains, rivers, valleys, snow fields, snow capped mountains, waterfalls, bridges, mountain goats, lakes and later we would even go through a desert. yes, a desert!

Our trip took us out of Skagway up and over the mountains into British Columbia and then into the Yukon. The area is exactly like Washington. The west is rainy, over cast and can change at a moments notice. As you climb into the mountains you have alpine tundra and once you get to the other side and drop down into BC it is like eastern Washington and it turns dry with little cloud cover. The fartehr we got into the Yukon the nicer the day it was.

As we traveled along the highway up into the mountains, the same route as the goldminers took to get to the Klondike gold fields, we crossed this very interesting bridge that is supported on one side so when there are earthquakes the bridge is not attached to the other side and is made unusable. It just moves withthe earth as it rests on one side and is attached to the other. Also in the same valley where we pulled off the road to look at the bridge and see the sites of the valley, there was a mountain goat and her baby up on the mountain side grazing. To far away for a good picture but was a lot of fun to see through binoculars.

We made some stops along the way where took pictures of everything from heards of mountain goats, lakes, rivers, mountains, ice locked lakes, snow fields with massive boulders to the boarder crossing into Canada and the border of the Yukon. It was gorgeous.

By the time we made our way to Carcross in the Yukon Territory it was lunch time. So we stopped at this trading post called Caribou Crossing that had a chicken lunch for us and also had a museum with many stuffed wild animals including the largest polar bear you will ever see, mamoth, bear, moose and every other creature you could imagine from that part of the world.

This is also where you could gold pan. This was something I was looking forward to as I like to pan but have or had no clue on how to properly do it. They have a big trough and they give you a pan with grave in it laced with gold flakes. they teach you how to pan and the gold to have left in your pan is yours to keep. I struck the mother lode as we all did, it was a lot of fun and I will put that to use in the mountains when we go camping.

After leaving the trading post we went to a beatiful lake that was emerald green with all sorts of shades of blues and greens, unreal, totally surrounded by mountains. Michelle is going to buy it when we hit the lotto.

From there we drove to the top of a mountain with vistas well over 100 miles in all directions. It was incredible up there, the mountains, lakes, rivers, glaciers and the weather. it was nice where were but you could see the rain just all of a sudden appear in a valley between two mountains pouring right out of the blue sky. It was quite an experience.

Our next stop was at the Carcross desert, a real live desert billed as the world’s smallest. Nikolai ran around in the sand dunes that are surrounded by mountains capped in snow that are hiking distance away.

It was a fantastic day. We experienced over cast drizzle, cold, alpine tundra, beautiful blue sky with sunshine, a desert, plus saw all sorts of wildlife, the gorgeous mountains, lakes, rivers, peaks and valleys. The trip was nearly 8 hours and a highlight for sure. Can’t wait to go back. Our drivers were top shelf, very knowledeable and fun, I hope when we go back Mick and Terrel are there again.

Once back to Skagway our guide, Mick dropped us off in town so we could get our touristy stuff, like tee shirts, our collectors spoon and the charm to complete Michelle charm bracelet.

After being dropped off at the ship we went straight to our room, showered and got ready for supper, main course……….king crab legs!

I told our waiter, Mr. Wii, the night before there wasn’t enough king crab legs on the boat, he assured me there was and when it came time to eat, he brought plates heaping with crab legs for us all to get miserible with! It was obvious they had some crab brought to the ship from the Northwestern, the Gusinsky’s favorite crab boat on Deadliest Catch. Our waiters really took great care of us during this time on the ship, no doubt about it.

Skagway is a great town and if you ever are there you must book an excursion with Frontier Excursions, you will not be disappointed. Skagway will be a tremendous memory for sure. Check out the pictures that go with this day in the photo sets on the left of the home page. Click North to Alaska Day 6 for pictures.