At the bottom of the pass, I was on a Skagway high. First, we had an amazing excursion experience. I mean, how many times do you get 6 adults and two preschoolers together for hours on end when they all emerge smiling? And the best part? It was only lunchtime! Which meant plenty of time to eat and explore the town I had most enjoyed on our prior Alaska cruise. I had so many big plans: the cupcake shop, a micro-brewed root beer, some salmon chowder, chocolate
.so much shopping to be done. SO much.
Psssst dude, the train just left.
Skagway is super cute. There is this mostly-authentic-but-also-a-bit-overdone historic look to the place.
First on the agenda? FOOD. My parents headed back to the ship to eat lunch, but with Isabelle freshly napped and Lionel actually on board for browsing (a rare occurrence, my friends
..very rare) I didnt want to lose any ground. I spotted a little sandwich place two shops down that sold salmon chowder, and reindeer sausage. Score. Hearty, Alaskan and local: exactly what we were looking for.
And here, my friends, is where the downfall began.
For the guy who ran this shop was not the kindly independent restaurateur I was expecting. Rather, he was the surly are you done yet? Because I have stuff to do kind of chef. It was pretty clear that it was HIS shop, so Im not sure why he gave off such a cold vibe. It wasnt particularly crowded, but there was a steady flow of customers. He just seemed to find us all bothersome.
Still, we were hungry and I was having myself some chowder, dammit. Food in hand, we parked ourselves at a table in the back alley (apparently Skagway has alleys. Who would have guessed?) And it was
.underwhelming. The chowder was good, but I from the expression on everyone elses face it tasted better because we were hungry. The reindeer sausage, according to the boys, was nothing special. Just sausage. And it was all rather pricey. It was a little disappointing. From the outside, it looked like this quaint little food-truck type establishment, just on solid ground. I guess we should have looked a little further down the road, because after we moved along I noticed they were selling salmon chowder pretty much everywhere.
No matter, we had eaten locally, which had been one of my goals for the trip. And with some food in our tummies, we all felt better.
It was root beer time.
Jason and I bee-lined for the Skagway Brewing Company, where we were promptly
.ignored by the hostess. Not unseen, mind you: completely ignored. We opted to go right to the bar, where several other of the customers were headed. Seemed like they knew what they were doing. Well, along with them we were ignored for several more minutes AT THE BAR. All around us it was chaos. People trying to grab the attention of the waitstaff, waitstaff flirting with other customers and ignoring them, hostess wandering off and returning occasionally to grudgingly shuffle customers to their seats. And we waited, and waited and waited.
After a few excuse- excsu- EXCUSE M- which ended with someone bustling past in a blur, we gave up and figured wed just stop at the Red Onion on the way back to the ship. So far Skagway had been kind of a bust, but I was about to turn that all around with a trip to the chocolate shop. This was the one and only time we had good customer service in Skagway. I guess you cant help but be happy if you work in a chocolate shop. Armed with a bag of sweet treats (which are fab, by the way check that place out if you ever end up in Skagway) I was ready to do some serious shopping.
At some point, we got separated from Jason and Stef and Paige. I have no idea where. It was getting kind of crowded so it was hard to tell whether people were coming in to a shop or heading back out. Last trip, I bought Isabelle a darling set of moose PJs in a kids clothing store, and I wanted to go back. Well, apparently somewhere between then and now the price had gone up by $10, and I was having none of that. Plus? That quaint little brand I was so excited to get again? Was in EVERY SINGLE STORE WE WENT IN. And also, I discovered, not actually made in Alaska. Strike two. Wait, was that three? I was losing count of the strikes by now.
Last time in Skagway, there were three ships in port. This year there were four. You wouldnt think one more ship would make such a difference, but let me tell you: it was CROWDED. People all over the sidewalks. People in the street. Shops overflowing. Plus? It was really warm. All those layers I had been wearing up in the Yukon had been peeled off one by one and shoved under Isabelles stroller. And shops in Alaska? Not so much air conditioning.
A little tidbit about my girl: she LOVES to shop. So we kept popping in and out of stores. It was burning off some energy, and it was making her happy to browse. She would stroke a random cheapo t-shirt and say oooh, look at this shirt Mommy! Or pick up a stuffed animal and declare that to be her favorite animal, and could she get it, only to immediately drop it and fall in love with some other stuffed animal.
We were in the middle of said ritual, when suddenly we heard hey, get out of there!
At first I thought she was yelling at Isabelle. Or me. Startled, I turned to face the angry clerk who was glaring at two unsupervised children. They looked to be about 9 or 10, brother and sister. They werent being obnoxious or anything, but the brother had unfortunately chosen to park his bottom in a low bin full of stuffed animals. The kids froze in fear.
Get out of there! Thats not for sitting on!
There was steam coming out of her ears and her eyes were glowing red. Or at least Im sure thats what it looked like to them. The boy sheepishly said sorry
. and got up. But that was not enough. The clerk turned her attention to the girl, who was trying on silly knit hats shaped like animals. Those arent for playing with!
She slowly removed the hat, took her brothers hand and vacated the store. The clerk looked at me next. I didnt know whether she was going to say something like kids today! or whether she was going to yell at me for letting my daughters petite little hand (which was clean, for the record) foul the inside of a polar bear puppet. But she said nothing.
I dont know how long we stood there, looking at each other. Minutes, hours, days
.the seconds ticked on and I thought at one point, this is what crazy looks like before it does something you read about in the news. Without turning my head, I said Izzy? Put the polar bear back please. She must have known something was up by the tone of my voice, because she dropped the bear in the bin without question. I reached out behind me, never taking my eyes off the clerk. Isabelle took my hand, and we backed out of the store.
Outside, I decided I was done with this place. Skagway wasnt fun any more. Everywhere I looked, people were in freak-out mode. I felt like an imposter in this faux Alaska tourist trap, and I wanted to go back to the ship. Back where people were nice, and called me maam without a tone of voice that implied some deep-seeded desire to break my arms.
Lionel: I thought you wanted cupcakes?
Me: I changed my mind. Lets go.
And then, there was the Red Onion Saloon. Root beer. I took a chance. How much worse could it get? Inside, it wasnt as busy as I expected. Maybe it would be ok. Heck, a refreshing chilled root beer might even replenish the desire to snag a few Alaska-made cupcakes. The hostess was dressed in period costume and playing the part, flirting shamelessly with what appeared to be a crew member of one of the four docked ships.
*Ahem*
Cue the look. Too late to turn back now.
Can I get a root beer?
She eyed me up and down. At the bar, you can.
Dont suppose theres any chance of getting one to go?
I swear, if a record had been playing, the needle would have skidded across it and the place would have gone silent. That was the way she looked at me. Apparently I had three heads or something, and they dont do anything to go in Skagway. A simple no would have sufficed. It had been wishful thinking anyway. I just really wanted that root beer. But I didnt want to sit in there and drink it, alone at the bar.
Defeated, I headed back out into the bright sunlight and we slowly made our way toward the end of the main street, where the train had dropped us a little over an hour ago. I wanted desperately to be back on that train, to see the good in Skagway again. And then, I saw it: the caboose.
Our faith in the town was redeemed. No one was around, so we even braved the train store. I hadnt gotten anything but chocolate in Skagway, and that would be gone soon enough. Inside the shop it was calm and quiet. And cool! The clerk looked up and smiled, and I finally relaxed. Isabelle did some more shopping (ooh, Mommy, a train whistle! A hat! A
what is this? Can I have this?) and settled on a neat little train ornament. I got a few pins too. It only reaffirmed what I had learned about Skagway this time around: trains good, tourist shops bad.
I was relieved when we got back to the ship, reunited with the crew and able to remove our shoes and relax. How could one day be so amazing, disappointing and then amazing again? At dinner, Stefanie told us she had found the cupcake place, and it had been amazing. And Jason had hung at the Red Saloon bar long enough to have a root beer, which had also been great. Ah, well. I was a little sad, but at the end of the day it wasnt the end of the world. I had chocolate, and a cool ornament.
And sadly, a sick little girl. For this was the night the whining began
..
Up next: whining and whales! And a little more whining.