Wednesday Sept 6, 2023
Hi All! Today was such a nice relaxing day. Usually when I’m in ports it’s a hectic day getting to all the excursions. With Skagway being a town I’ve been to several times and having already done the Yukon and White Pass Railroad excursion (which is awesome!), I decided to just chill and take in the quaint little town and scenery around me.
Skagway has such an interesting history. They call it the gateway to the Klondike. At the peak of the Gold Rush, Skagway was the largest city in Alaska with over 10,000 residents, about 10 times more than today. This area is also where Jack London got his inspiration for Call of the Wild and where John W. Nordstrom earned enough from a gold mine stake to open his first department store in Seattle in 1901.
So I slept in, had breakfast and ventured into town to find the rarest of rare commodities in Skagway… free wifi! Everything in Alaska is so expensive and there were plenty of places wanting to sell wifi for $5, $10, even $20 per hour! Crazy! So with the advice from one of the workers on board (they all know the best free wifi places in port), and the help from some locals on the street, I found the Skagway Public Library! Free Wifi!! And the place was so cute. Just a small little building and they had a kids program going on so while I posted my last 3 days of my travel blog I got to listen to “There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name oh”! So fun!
After that, I walked around town for awhile then of course it was time for lunch! It’s nice when your cruise ship is docked only a 5 minute walk from town. So I had lunch then walked back in to town to do some shopping for the grandkids and Kathy! People are going to think my grandkids live in Alaska since I’ve been here three times in the last year and always get them some gear! I also feel bad that Kathy couldn’t make it but she flew to Dublin today and will get to spend a day there in one of my favorite European cities so she’ll be having fun (other than having to deal with the 200+ passengers over and back!).
After that I headed back to the ship and decided to try out the pool and hot tub. They were very relaxing! This ship has a retractable roof over one of the pools so it’s like a sauna in there. I pretty much had the place to myself since everyone was probably out doing excursions.
After that I had a nice dinner, caught some tunes at the piano place and then went to the comedy show they had. The comedian was hilarious. He was African American and kept making jokes about him being the only black person on the ship (not too far off!) and how he had to explain every joke because the “white folk” didn’t understand him. He was not politically correct at all and the crowd loved it!
Tomorrow we’re on to the Capitol of Alaska, Juneau! Happy Hump Day to all!
The Wandering Italian 