Liarsville in Skagway Alaska

What a terrific start to the day, we saw elk, fox, and prairie dogs in the Yukon this morning.

The drive back into Alaska was breath taking, we will go back up their in the jeep tomorrow to explore.

We arrived in Skagway by 1PM and were enjoying a show and salmon bake at Liarsville at 2PM.  Liarsville is set up like an old gold mining town from the 1890's, they present a hoop-dee-doo show that is fun, boisterous, musical entertainment, provided by entertainers in period costumes.

We had a good time and the salmon was delicious!

Alaskan Highway

We ran into some roadwork on the Alaskan Highway that slowed us down a little, but we didn't mind too much since mother nature was putting on a great show with all the Autumn colors. We pulled over to sleep just short of Whitehorse.

We needed to go into Canada to get to Skagway.

Saw this custom, cute RV in the Yukon.

A touch of fall...

We got up early and started to roll. We are headed to Skagway, Alaska. We took Glenn Highway to the Tok Cutoff. You can tell fall is coming, the trees have turned gold, amber, light-orange, and a little bit of red. The bright colors are a nice surprise, we didn't think we would see Autumn colors on this trip.  We ate dinner at Fast Eddies, my favorite thing to order here is the Alaskan hamburger and John loves their meatloaf. We pulled into a reststop just east of Tok to sleep for the night.

Last full day in Anchorage

Our last full day in Anchorage, we went to the BX and the mall to do a little shopping and then walked around downtown. Later, we checked out the salmon fishing in Ships Creek and ended our day with a steak dinner at Texas Roadhouse - we go here often, they grill a good steak.

Alaska State Fair

We went to the Alaska State Fair, we enjoyed the yummy state-fair food like turkey legs, bar-b-que pork sandwiches and fruit filled cream puffs. We saw the epic sized produce like the pumpkin that was just shy of 1,500 lbs, a new Alaskan state record. Enjoyed seeing all the animals but the best part of the fair was a booth where the Elks Lodge ran something called the Rat Race, so much fun!   It raised a lot of money for charity. 

We made it back to Anchorage in time for a pizza dinner at the Moose's Tooth, awesome pizza!  While there, we ran into a nice,dynamic young couple we met last week down in Seward on the fjord glacier boat tour, Tyler and Gabrielle, he serves in the Air Force and she is a nurse. Her parents, Carita and David, were at the Moose's Tooth with them, they are up visiting from Arizona. Fabulous people, we all had a great time getting to know each other.

Aurora Borealis

Friday night we were up late watching the movie The Gladiator, it finished just after midnight.  We ran outside to see if the aurora borealis was visible. Wow!!! Translucent brush strokes of bright green with hints of pink painted the dark sky. It was like watching a living painting; it breathed, it moved, it danced. The colors appeared in a swirl and then would drift apart as the hues faded away and a new translucent stroke of color would show in the black night sky. The northern lights are a natural phenomenon that you must see for yourself, I do not have the words to explain it's wonder and beauty. Just amazing!

Whittier, Alaska

We enjoyed our week long stay in Seward, wonderful laid-back summer holiday town, but Thursday morning was time to move on. We packed up the RV and headed north on Seward Highway. We pulled into a reststop overlooking the beautiful waters of Turnagain Arm, disconnected the jeep and headed out to explore the harbor town of Whittier. Whittier is a quaint town on the shores of Prince William Sound, we drove there from the Portage Glacier road through the single-lane 2½ mile long tunnel shared (not at the same time, they take turns) by both vehicles and the Alaska Railroad. Yes, it is a 2.5 mile tunnel, I believe it is the longest in the USA. 

We had dinner at Varly's Swiftwater Seafood, great place! I had the fish and chips and John enjoyed a cheese burger with fries; ate on the back patio, it has a nice harbor view. We met a fun couple, Patti and Brian, they were also enjoying the fish and chips. We traded a few travel stories and they told us that the beluga whales gave a good showing yesterday in the Turnagain Arm.  So when we returned to the RV we started looking for balugas and about a half dozen young, small, blue-grey belugas swam close to our shore. Belugas turn all white when they are about 4 or 5 years old. Today, before we got back on the road we saw a group of adult belugas playing and swimming just offshore, an amazing sight! John said a few of them looked like large marshmallows bobbing in the water. 

Later, we checked into the campgrounds at Fort Richardson, then ran to Anchorage to pick up some RV supplies and have dinner at Texas Roadhouse.