We woke up to a brilliant sun shining with a crispness only found in the mountains.  It made up for all the rain yesterday – immediately.

I spent most of the day trying to slow down, which takes conscious effort for me.  As Brad says, “You’re Sammy Hagar dude.  You can’t drive 55.”  It’s an affliction.  Good in business and such, but not so good when you just want to ride and enjoy.  And that’s exactly what we did for most of the morning as we road part of the Alaskan Highway we’d ridden on the way up.  No matter – we had no wind all morning.  Just perfect mile after perfect mile.

We were lucky enough to only have to backtrack on the Alaskan Highway for a short section, and it turns out to be one of the most spectacular places I have ever seen – the Kluane Lake.

I realized too late that for the first 20 minutes I was riding with my knee pressed up against the nozzle of my water bladder.  I only noticed it because water was filling up my boot.  It went everywhere but in my mouth.  Great.  No water the rest of the ride as the wind whips all the moisture from my body.

As we closed in on Haines Junction, Yukon, Brad had the idea to head down to Haines, Alaska, and then take the ferry across to Skagway, which is supposed to be a great, old Russian town that was converted to a gold rush town and now has all the fossils from that time.  I guess the trip hasn’t been long enough, and we haven’t seen enough, so we need to add on another 300 miles.  And a ferry ride.  Of course!  And, it was worth every mile, but not for the reasons we intended – the ride was absolutely incredible, but Skagway?  It blows.  More on that later.

So glad we decided to head down to Haines and then Skagway.  What an unbelievable ride through more peaks along an impossibly greenblue river with perfect clouds merely accenting the blue sky bringing out more color.

We arrived early for our ferry, and hung out in Haines for a while, and this is where we should have stayed – at least there was some character.  We also met a guy (who’s name totally escapes me, sorry) and his girlfriend/wife/sig other (not sure) named Jana (weird that I remember the girl’s name) from Vancouver.  We talked motorcycles for a while, and he’s done an around the world trip on a motorcycle.  I regret not getting his information – I have tons of questions for him.  If you’re reading, post a comment so I can get your info!

We go through Canadian Customs, and pull in to Haines.  Great views on the way to a great little town.

We finally boarded the ferry and settled in for the hour ride.  I tried writing for a while, but the scenery was too spectacular, and then I fell asleep on the top deck and woke up freezing – I was the only one on the deck.  Everyone was gone!  I had no idea where I was.  Braaad?  Braaaad?  Where is everybody?  I can’t feel my fingers!  Little help here!  I survived the scare, and we got back on the bikes for the three block ride into Skagway (or, as I now call it, Skankway).

While we were in Haines, we looked for some hotels, and we were immediately drawn to one – The Morning Wood Hotel.  I shit you not.  Pretty much a no-brainer for us.  Plus, it was cheap as hell, which was a plus, although we did find it weird that they told us very explicitly that there are NO refunds for noise complaints.  Hmm.  Turns out that the bar, which stays open until 4 or 5 am (and is an absolute fucking dump of epic proportions) is right beneath our rooms and shared bathrooms (super sweet), and I think the building was built with cardboard – if anyone farted we’d have known.  I was so tired, I slept through it, but Brad was not so lucky.

So, Skagway.  Yikes.  We land, (with 200-300 other people you’d expect would want food), and stop at 3 different restaurants at about 9:55, and no one would serve us – sorry, the kitchen closes at 10. That was the first bit of suck.  We finally find a burger joint and inhale a couple burgers.  Fueled, we decide to head out and see the legendary Skagway.

Entering the bar downstairs, we watch a lot of just really bad drunks.  It was just a lot of sad, gnarly drinking going on. It was more depressing than anything else.  Just general badness all around.  I watched a floppy mound of a woman spill a beer down some dude’s lap, and they just kind of ignored it as they slurred their way through pushing the beer to the side with their arms.  Hot.  Then she picked up the random warm beer that had been sitting there since we’d gotten there and started chugging.  Mmm, warm, random, crappy beer.  Yum.

We find one other bar open, and they’re playing club music and dancing.  Hard.  Poorly. Awesome. I think there was more meth ingested than shitty tequila – and that’s saying a lot.

Everything was dead.  Apparently there was a wedding up in the hills that “everyone” was at.  Well, Skagway only has about 900 permanent residents after hitting a peak of over 20,000 people during the gold rush, so maybe everyone was there.

And no wifi anywhere.  Ugh. And no blog-worthy ladies on this day – at all!  Seriously.  Can you believe that? And we were really looking.  So sorry to disappoint.

All in all, it was a GREAT night!  Not necessarily glamorous, but it’s always a fantastic experience to see how other people live – whatever that means.

Self-portrait time.  I’ve been slacking.

And, our update.  Not breaking any speed records on the way down…  Made it to Q though!