Alaska 2015 - Day 50 - Skagway

Day 50 – 6-30-15 Tuesday A cool windy 59 degrees this morning. Four different cruise ships are in dock this morning. The three here yesterday left between 8:30-9PM.

After breakfast we walked into town and bought our tickets for the White Pass train trip that leaves at 4:30PM. Then we did the tourist thing and walked down the streets in town to check everything out. We checked out several places that advertised coffee and baked goods, but nothing looked appealing until we decided to get off the main busy street and try some of the side streets. That is where we spotted the Lemon Rose Bakery sign on the corner of 5^th Ave. and State Street. They didn't open until 10AM so we waited the ten minutes and were their first customers. They had a large selection of pastries and all the normal espresso coffees. While trying to decide which pastries to get the clerk told us they would have cinnamon buns out of the oven in ten minutes so we ordered 2 lattes and 2 cinnamon buns. As you have probably noticed we are testing cinnamon buns and lattes almost everywhere we can find them. We voted these buns and lattes the best yet and told the clerk that. It's hard to beat a good cinnamon bun just out of the oven. We bought two more and put them in our freezer to take home. Too bad they don't open tomorrow before we plan to leave town.

We walked some more of the back streets to look at some of the places we didn't see in 2007 when we were here. Then we decided to go in the Alaska Shirt Company. We remembered it from our 2007 visit. They have the best prices on gifts like t-shirts, regular shirts, caps, jackets, etc. of any place in Alaska that we have seen. Example: caps with embroidered Alaska symbols like bears and eagles for $1.99, t-shirts $6.99 with Alaska symbols printed on them. Then we returned to the campground to get some lunch before our train trip.

We boarded the White Pass and Yukon trail at 4:40PM for our 3.5 hour trip up the mountain. The narrow gauge railroad has quiet a long history. It was started in 1898. The route was designated an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1994. I was amazed that they could built the railroad back in the late 1800's through the extremely rough terrain using the type of equipment available back then. The route was cut out of the side of the mountain through some extremely rocky areas and there were two tunnels we went through. The scenery was extraordinary. There was a narrator telling about the history of the railroad and how the route was built. We climbed from sea level in Skagway up to an elevation of 2865 feet at White Pass. Some of the original foot path that the people in the 1800's used to get over the mountain could be seen from the railroad. We crossed over into the Yukon Territory, then stopped the train and moved the three engines to the other end of the train cars and we returned to Skagway. A nice trip.