Day Two

Day Two. (Pictures to come, have to download them to the computer)

Day two went pretty well. We woke up in Haines Junction, Yukon Territory, Canada to no fire alarm which is always pleasant. The hotel we stayed at, The Alcan was pretty decent. 2 queen beds, a microwave, coffee maker and a small fridge. Best of all when we arrived it was pitch black and in the morning the view was spectacular! Simply amazing; snow cap mountain ranges for miles. After a quick bite to eat at the attached restaurant we were off. Unfortunately we slept in late and weren’t able to use our loonies, so we kept them :)

The rest of the drive through Yukon Territory was uneventful except driving thru Destruction Bay. The roads turned a little icy and the wind was horrible. But despite that - not to bad. However, when we entered into British Columbia, it seemed to just have a dumping of snow. It was a complete white out, the road was white, the mountains were white – the only thing that was telling you where the edges of the road were –were the pole markers spread out every few feet . Entering back in to the United States the guard actually scanned our Passports. We drove through no problem and then 45 min later we stopped to stretch our legs right before Haines, AK. This is where we saw TONS of Bald Eagles. Too numerous to count, they were everywhere. We were lucky enough to pull in and one fly in a tree right in front of us and eat his prey. We captured some terrific pictures of this giant bird eating some type of fish!

Haines is a small town, with a main street and an IGA, VFW and a couple of cute little mom and pop shops. We ate lunch there at an old timy Saloon made of wood. It would have been straight out of “North to Alaska” except it was painted blaze orange and had the interior décor of something from a 1970’s elevator, and then were off to the terminal. We got there super early primarily because we didn’t want to drive in the dark and have the roads completely frozen for us. We got our tickets parked our car in lane 2 (which was labeled lane 3 for some reason) and waited inside for almost three hours. Jeff and I were about to kill the kids, but what can we do, they have been cooped up for a long time in the car and all they want to do is run around. We have misplaced the case of their Disney DVDs and the only one we have is Ice Age which has been watched million times this trip and they are getting sick of it. The kids read a dinosaur book and played tag with some other children in the terminal.

During the nighttime meltdown of both children we drive on the ferry and board our room. (read: box) of 2 bunk beds and our sitting room is a ratty old chair in the middle of the bunk beds. We do have a window though, which comes complete with one of the best views of the Alaskan Wilderness. Maybe Alex Supertramp should have taken the ferry instead!!

Once on board an announce was made that if any Doctors, Nurses or Medical were on board and willing to volunteer their services, please give them your name. I gave them my name at the same time thinking, please no emergencies this trip but secretly hoping to do something exciting!
We should also mention that our good friend Scott, Jeff’s fellow company commander is on this trip with us. He is headed to Phoenix City to spend the holiday with his family then heading up to Huntsville, AL to work with Space Command as his next assignment. He is great with the kids and most of all can entertain them by juggling any three toys in their toy bag!

We ended the night by Jeff telling stories to the kids before bedtime. Then Ian and Blake told their own haunted story. Blake’s was this: “The monster. Haunted House. Bad monster, took snacks. ROAR. The End.” (read: with hand motions, like he was holding a book, turning pages)

Funny Sayings:
Kristin: “Blake did you poop?”
Ian: “Yes he did.”
Kristin: “Well how do you know?”
Ian: “Because his butt stinks”
Day Two:
150 miles this leg
Animals seen this trip:
CrowsBlue eyed black dog
Eagles- too numerous to count
Dead Buffalo (in guys truck at hotel)