June 10 - Skagway and Haines

Woke up this morning to a very cold and socked-in Skagway. Brrrrrr!!!! It  rained throughout the night but it held off most of the day although it was cold and damp and WINDY!!! What is it about the crazy WIND around here!? Gale force winds seem to pick up in the afternoon and howl for the rest of the day. One of the long term residents of the RV park guides fishing tours and he had to cancel his tour today because of the chop. 

We managed to pack up our camp during a pocket of time with no rain which was good. A soggy tent isn't much fun! We headed into town and went straight to the ferry terminal. We bought our tickets to Haines and then went and had breakfast at the Sweet Tooth Cafe on Main St. It's a cute little diner with good greasy spoon breakfast which was perfect on a cold, wet, windy day. After that, we wandered around. Another couple cruise ships had docked over night and the town filled up with another 10,000 tourists. The shops were hopping and it was just fun to people watch. One thing we sure noticed, people were agog at our motorbikes. Many of the Alaskan cruise folks are from afar and, I guess, Harley Davidsons are a big deal for a lot of them. We had all sorts of people gawking at us, smiling and giving us thumbs up as we drove through town. More than one person asked to have their picture taken with us and our bikes - we sort of felt like celebrities which was funny! One fellow named Dave saw our jackets and came up and asked if we really had Harleys. We  laughed and said yes, they're parked around the corner. Nothing would have it but for him to come with us and take a look. He was like a little kid, he was so thrilled and he asked to sit on my husband's trike and have a picture taken on it. His wife Cherryl said he has 3 Harleys in New Zealand and he's nuts about them. We had a great visit with them on the street and by the time we left, they had invited us to visit them in New Zealand and stay with them which, we truly believe, was a genuine offer. We just might take them up on it! This is the kind of thing that happens to us often - for some reason, motorcycles are an incredible point of social connection and we've been so lucky to meet many great people because of our bike trips. 

We headed over to the ferry and we left at 3:00, arriving in Haines at 4:00. Haines Junction is the next closest place and it's about 300kms away so we decided we would stay in Haines for the night and do the whole trip to Whitehorse (about 500kms) tomorrow. We're hoping it warms up a bit. In the meantime, we had a good home made dinner at the Lighthouse Bar and Restaurant on the harbour. Really good food. From there, we could see the old Fort Seward. It was a military fort during the war but it was decommissioned in 1946 and sold off privately. The officers' barracks are beautiful old Victorian-style mansions and the area became known as Snob Hill. You can see the toll the salt air, damp climate and time have taken on these old beauties but some of them are getting face-lifts and restoration work which is nice to see. 

Tonight we're staying at the Haines Hitch Up RV park. We tend to stay at RV parks when it's cold and we need some power for our little heater and a good shower. Otherwise, we stay at campsites or, sometimes, just along a quiet road. The Hitch Up is the opposite of the Garden City. It's clean and well looked after and the showers are free and hot and they even have hair dryers which is a luxury for me!