Skagway
Our first stop was Skagway a small town in the middle of the mountains from the gold rush era. My friend and her daughter had been to Skagway before and they had been rock climbing, but had never gone beyond the towns border. It is a quaint town with a population under 1,000 people which double in the summer for the tourist season. In the winter, there are only 4 stores open including on grocery store, a gas station and a hardware store. But, in the summer, there are several blocks of tourist focus stores and several eating places.
It was an early morning - meeting at 7 AM where we departed the ship. ABDers were picked up from the Wonder by several trolley cars driven by women in garb reminiscent of the gold rush era They drove us around the small town and gave us a history of Skagway. They then dropped us off at the Train Depot for our train up the White Pass Train to Fraiser British Columbia. Now, a number of excursions were on this same train but ABD made it very special (as usual) by providing us with our own train car (so we had plenty of seating and ability to go outside and be on the platform as we wished); supplied coffee and hot chocolate and some delicious cranberry scones and blueberry muffins from a local bakery; and arranged our own tour guide in the ABD train car (the rest of the train cars had to share 2 additional guides). As we climbed the White Pass, the guide pointed out some very interesting sites filled with information about history and wildlife. It was a little over an hour including crossing over the Canadian border. You could see the folks in the other train cars trying to figure out why we had both so much room as well as breakfast treats. And, we got a special souvenir hat from the train. You feel very special when you are on an ABD tour. By the top of the mountain the snow appeared (not falling just around) and it got a bit colder. This was one of the two places we used our scarfs and hats. The train stopped in Fraiser and set departed to get aboard our bus to the suspension bridge. The bridge is a replica of those bridges used by the gold rush to cross the dangerous mountain passes. I have a fear of heights so did not walk across the bridge with the rapids below which is fine because the bridge actually leads to nowhere. There were some exhibits on the side of the bridge before you walk over it depicting various aspects of the gold rush.
After the suspension bridge, we reboarded our bus for the trip back down the White Pass (by highway) back across the US/Canada border. At the border, we stopped to take pictures of the Welcome to Alaska sign and enjoy the vista and then we continued down the Pass to our next stop the Jewel Gardens. The Gardens are the only certified organic show garden in the United States. The enthusiasm of the staff is catchy as they describe the flowers and vegetables they grown. We walked through the gardens enjoying the beautiful weather
.because for the second straight day we had sunny and not to cold weather. Every day they said rain and cold and every day it was partly sunny and rather mild. As we traveled back down the mountain to the Jewel Gardens, it had gotten a bit warmer. Warmer meant a heavy sweatshirt but that was all we needed.
After we toured the Gardens, we had lunch. It was a light lunch salad, quiche, and soup with some rose tea but after all of the shipboard eating a light lunch was great. For the kids, there was mac and cheese so they didnt have to endured eating salad and quiche. After lunch, we were taken to an area of the gardens where they blow glass and we were given a demonstration. There was an alternate activity for the younger kids. I found this demonstration very interesting and even though I have seen glass blowing on a variety of Caribbean Islands, I thought this demonstration was the best I had seen. At the end, another ABD surprise
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After the gardens, we departed and went nearby to a place that was a replica of the gold panning experience. There was a talk by a person dressed up as a gold miner who talked a bit about the experience of gold mining and then we were taken to an area where we could practice a bit. Of course, everyone had a few gold flakes in their pans, which were collected in old plastic film canisters. WARNING all of this is part of the tour of course but when you go in to weigh your gold there is a hard sell of taking the few gold flakes out of the plastic film canister and putting them in a small plastic ball to wear around your neck of course this costs and not a little bit We ended up buying two small plastic balls and necklaces with the gold in them for a whopping $80 dollars. Personally, I thought the whole gold panning replication more than a bit cheesy. My friend who had done a gold panning tour in Juneau a number of years back noted that when she had done it it was a lot more informative about the gold mining experience and that the panning experience was drawn out more and although there was a bit of a sell to upgrade your gold container in the end it wasnt like this place. In other words, she thought that this particular gold panning trip was really inferior to a previous one she had done. Having said all of this when we were eating dinner back on the ship that night and we asked the girls what their favorite part of the day was they talked about the panning for gold. So go figure --- the fact they enjoyed it made it okay for us
After this very full day we had the option of going back to the ship or spending some time in the town of Skagway which we opted for doing a bit of shopping. We felt like we had a chance to see quite a bit of the region. One of the advantages of ABD is that you really have about 3 shore excursions in one --- all of the time with private tour guides and special gifts. There are over 50 excursions listed for each port in Alaska and there is not way you could put together the day that ABD planned. Also, the small group made it so much nicer to go from place to place and really was effortless on our part. Tomorrow Juneau.
Looking forward to more reports! 
