Watson Lake to Skagway

05-28-06
Started out today with freezing rain and snow after it blew and rained all night. Thought we might as well hit the road since the wind was from the east and we were heading west. I had been wondering what that area would look like in the snow so I found out the hard way. Last night almost everyone with a BIG motorhome washed their rigs. About 30 miles down the road we hit an area of gravel for 10 miles. The front of the trailer was totally brown. After we got back on the blacktop the truck tires threw up enough water to wash most of the mud off. We had thought about washing our rig, but decided to do other stuff and never got around to it!! The snow turned to rain after about 100 miles. We didn't see any wildlife except crows and rabbits until just before Skagway where we saw a beautiful black bear. His cost was just glistening in the sunshine. We saw a lot of area that had recently burned, some of the lakes still had quite a bit of ice on them. We crossed over the continental divide so now all the rivers except two empty into the Yukon River. Testin Lake is 86 miles long and 2 miles wide. We drove along side it for some time. Had cinnamon rolls at Johnson's Crossing and paid only $1.09 per litre at Testin. Arrived at Skagway at 1:30. This is what I always pictured Alaska as looking like. Of course this is our first sight of Alaska on this trip. We have explored most of the town and will do some more tomorrow before we catch the Alaska Ferry to Haines. $204 for a one way one hour ferry trip!!! But we would have driven an extra 300 miles to see Haines if we went back up and around. So plan to stay in Haines tomorrow night since we don't get there until about 6 pm. Drove 324 miles.