From Skagway to Ketchikan to Juneau
Up in the air with all this equipment in a helicopter looking down onto the city of Skagway: my favorite thing in Alaska was the helicopter ride up to the glaciers. The helicopter was very small, but we managed to fit in. When we got onto the glacier, almost everything was white and blue. When we left Skagway, we sailed to Ketchikan, and there we went on a floatplane. Looking at the sky, and hoping it wouldn’t rain, pleased that the plane propellers were working, and astonished that my parents were letting me fly on a floating plane, we embarked for a glorious flight over the forests of southern Alaska.
That day was an exciting yet tiring day, because we had a helicopter ride for 30 min and a little walk on a glacier which made it forty-five minutes, plus a ride back, so it took about 1 hour and 15 minutes. I was beat and exhausted. After dinner at eight, I was ready to go to sleep. All the sudden, my sister who was reading the coupon book shouted: “I want to collect those coins and charms!” My mom got excited. It turned out that you could collect nine different charms and coins from the chain stores located at the three cities we docked at during our cruise. Juneau was our first stop. If we wanted to do this, we had to go right away. My dad and I were so worn out and we didn’t want to go at all. But my mom and my sister were determined to go. So, we all went out, but they were way ahead of us, we were just walking really slowly behind them. They realized that most of the stores were closed and we only got one charm. The charm said 1 with diamonds on it. It had a puffin picture on it. Every charm has its own animal or something to do with Alaska. The whole bracelet spelled A L A S K A CRUISE ‘1 1. We were missing two charms from Juneau. I really like the charms and coins. The charms were gold color, with shiny diamonds (fake). The coins were gold with something to do with Alaska on it.
In Skagway, we went on a train tour to Yukon Mountain in Canada! It took about one and a half hours. The train we rode on was built for the gold rush. The gold rush was in 1898. We went through the White Pass and the Yukon roads. We saw tons of mountains and rivers, waterfalls, glaciers (from the distance), lots of trees and some valleys. We heard the whistle of the train, the wind blowing through the trees, and the train on the track. All I really tasted was water in a tank on that train,a nd it wasn’t the best water. In the middle of the ride I fell asleep. So I missed some stuff. After the train ride, we went to Liarsville to get some gold! We bought the gold but still had to look for it in a tray kind of thing; there was a show going on at Liarsville, too. “Liarsville” was named Liarsville because when the gold rush took place, the reporters had to walk all the way to the gold rush which took a couple of months so instead of walking all the way to the gold rush … they stayed at Liarsville and made up a story! That’s how Liarsville got its name. We smelled the smoke around the bonfire in the camp. I really liked the train ride. Although it was windy, it was great. Then at Juneau, we went on a glacier tour! We saw so many different glaciers and mountains. When we were in the helicopter, it was pretty hot. But as soon as we stepped on the glacier, it was like winter again. Our tour guide/helicopter driver said that the glacier water was drinkable! So when we got on the glacier, my mom, sister, dad and I went to go drink some water. It was good yet cold water.