Alaskan Vacation- Day 6

Today we woke up in Skagway. From the second we stepped off the ship we were hit with a terrible wind and freezing cold. Honestly, I wanted to turn around and go sit by the pool! We didn’t though, because today was the day we were going salmon fishing- something we have been looking forward to doing for weeks! I called one of the charters and the guy laughed at me and said “have you looked outside yet”? I guess all the charters cancelled today because of the wind and cold and they said the salmon haven’t really hit Skagway enough to make it worth them going out. I would like to say I was sad, but deep down I was a little relieved that I didn’t have to go sit on a cold boat today! We’ve decided to try fishing in Ketchikan on Thursday.

 So, without plans for the day we decided to just ride the shuttle through Skagway and check out the shops. There is only so much shopping you can do before it gets very boring! I think all the shops order from the same catalog, so you really only had to go to one store. We did find an amazing glass store that we spent a lot of time in. For some reason, I am amazed by the art of glass blowing and forming. Charlie bends and forms rods of glass to make the most beautiful jewelry. He showed us all the little shapes he puts in his glass to make it unique. His pieces were so expensive, so luckily, they had small pendants that were on special that were right in my price range, so I picked out a teardrop shaped one. Charlie was more than happy to pose for a picture with us, which I thought was so nice! If you’re ever in Skagway make sure you stop by Art Glass Alaska on 6^th and Broadway.

 We took a shuttle up to a gold mining shop where they showed us some of their gold nugget and walrus teeth/tusk jewelry that was worth thousands of dollars. We decided to pan for gold, so Sluicebox Charlie taught us how to find the gold, and then Two Ton Tom (from Orem, Utah) took us to the heated dredging bins. Brandon was a master panner and had to help me because I was too worried that I would lose my gold. We ended up finding 3.4 grams of gold, which was worth about $40.

I got a chuckle out of this! They wanted $20 a box!

After the tour we were pretty cold so we took the shuttle back to the ship and had a little nap. We found out that we get to have lobster for dinner tomorrow- Brandon’s a happy man!