Scagway

What an ugly name for a beautiful little town. This had been the day we'd planned to go kayaking, sending Jack with everyone else taking a train ride up the White Pass railroad, but when we looked out the window in the morning we saw some serious white caps on the water and thought maybe our kayaking skills would not be up to snuff. We were further vindicated in our decision once we got out on the pier and out of the ship's lee and were nearly knocked over by the gale force wind. Danny looked over at me as we trudged forward at a 45 degree angle, leaning into that unrelenting blast of air, and said "Can you imagine kayaking right now?" I couldn't. We hopped on the train with the others, and despite the rather painful pricetag of admission, we were glad we did. It was stunning scenery and Jack was so happy to be riding a choo-choo it would've been a shame to miss out on his excitement.



It would've been more stunning scenery if we could actually see all of it, but alas, much was shrouded in fog. At least it seemed authentically Alaskan.

Danny read about the history of the rail line in the gold rush while I took somewhat inferior pictures, and then Danny took over the camera so I could sit back enjoy the ride. The adults just barely outnumbered the kids in our party, so it was almost relaxing.

We returned to the boat for a midday nap for Jack, and when he woke up we headed out again just the three of us for a hike. A bunch of NPS trails left right from the town center, and within ten minutes of hiking you could be up a hill with a great view of the port. We continued up that very steep hill, grateful to finally be earning some of those  calories we'd already banked on the ship. We eventually came to a little glacial lake, where we stopped for a while so Jack could, you guessed it, throw rocks in the water.

All in all, we were pretty big fans of Scagway.