Monday 8/2/99
Day 5: Carcross, Dyea & Skagway
We slept in today as we woke up at 7:30. We were going down to Skagway today and to the Highway 2 White pass aroudn 8:00. This is a great trip as the scenary is one of the best of Alaska/Yukon territory. we first went by Lake Kookatsoon whish is a nice lake and picnic area but does not have any camping areas. The Stickeen Bill Robinson Raodhouse is the next place that we stop as there are several old buildings tha are still standing here. This place was abandoned in 1915 but has now been made taken care of is consideres a tourist site. Down a littlre bit further on teh right side we come to Emerald Lake which ius a green color but changes color depending on lighting. 
There is also a ribbon of sand along the shore with an cabin down further and also an island on teh lake.We always take pictures of theis lake asn it always looks a little different. Spirit Lake is to the left of us and then we come to the Carcross Desert. This is consiedered the woulds smallest desert as you wouldn ot expect something like this in Yukon. We let the kids out toplay as they had a long jumping contest and playing tag with each other. It was nece to get away form them to as cindy and I took alittle walk in teh sand and jsut ignored teh kids for a little bit of peace and quiet
We next stopped at the small town of Carcross which was originally called Carabou Crossing but the post office thought that name was too long. We found a place to eat breakfast, ordered and read old National Geographic magazines while we waited for our food. About half way through our meal I realized I was missing my wallet. I remembered paying for our pizza at Pizza Hut last night, so I immediately called them from a pay phone. Sure enough someone had left a wallet last night. So we drove back north to pick it up in Whitehorse. We got back there about 11pm and got my wallet back. We decided to spend a couple hours in Whitehorse. We did some shopping. There is a small mall here and a street that is like the main street in lots of medium sized towns. We got Shawns's glasses fixed; stopped at the Intrepretive Center to find out about road conditions; reserved a room at the Bonanza Hotel for $59, the one place we didn't check out last night even though Jacob kept telling us to; bought sandwiches at a place called The Deli and ate them at the Rotary Peace Park by the river.
We headed back down to Skagway around 2:30 pm. We stopped in Carcross again. We checked out the Barracks, an odd collection of historic buildings now used tas a giftshop/ice shop. The clerk is dressed up as Calamity Jane and showed the kids the man in the john and put Shawna in jail long enogh to have her picture taken. I forgot what crime she had committed. She also let Shawna play her player piano. We bought some ice cream and stopped at the Visitor Center located in an old train depot. We finally got out of town. We stopped to take pictures of the aabandoned Venus Mine along the sied of the road. The scenery along this highway is quite breathtaking and constantly changing. One stretch of the highway goes through the Tormented Valley, which has lots of pools of water and very low growing trees because of the wind and soil conditions. A railroad track comes in and out of view across the valley following the base of the mountains. Several different mountain ranges appear as well.
We finally got into Skagway at 5:30 pm taking the Dyea Road just before town. We stopped at a lookout to take a picture of the town, befpre continueing on to the ghost town and cemetary in Dyea. There was one cruise ship in port, which meant it wasn't a good time to go into town. as it can get quite crowded with tourists. The Dyea Road was a windy, dirt road, which took us past two shallow inlets and the Dyea Campground. We walked around the Chilkoot Slide Cenetery and took some trails where there were suppose to be relics of stuff the miners had left behind. We only saw trees, a small pond and few piles of wood. 
We ran into a ranger who asked if we'd seen the only standing building in Dyea, the false front to a store. It must have been a pretty small buidling as this wall only measured about 4 feet by 6 feet. We stopped at thecamground which was full of mosquitoes and had about 20 sites, only half were being used. The parking here is also used by people hiking the Chilkoot Pass. A few miles out of Dyea we were stopped by a construction workers. It turned out that a construction crew blasting some rock caught some brush on fire. We waited over an hour, periodically hearing another fire engine, but they stopped us far enough away that we couldn't see or smell any fire. When they finally let us through Dale spotted a couple of burned areas on the side of the the road and we passed two fire trucks.
We drove into town of Skagway around 9 pm (8pm Alaskan time). By that time many of the stores and the visitor's center were starting to shut down. We got the kids a snack and headed back north around 9:30 pm. It was a nice day, around 80' and blue skies all day. We got in to Whitehorse around 11:45pm and spent the night at the Bananza Inn. We got the kids an bed and went down stairs for a few drinks at the bar where Dale discovered pickled sausages-how gross!!
We drove 350 miles today and 2050 total