Alaska Highway to Skagway and Haines, AK

A close up of our sign added today to the #signpostforest in Watson Lake. #Airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife

Added our little sign to the 75,000+ in the signpost forest! Among them, we found another family from Petaluma that we'll have to look up! #fulltimefamilies #airstreamtoalaksa #signpostforest #watsonlake #advodnaxmascard

Great to cross paths on the Alaska Highway with @whereintheworldrv. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up again tonight in Teslin. #instameet #Airstream

I like the fact that in Teslin, Yukon, two kids small enough to ride these bikes made their way from who knows where to park them in front of the Yukon Motel and disappear inside. #Yukon #Teslin

Good to see caps from the home beers still "hanging in there" on the magnetic bottle cap catcher on the Airstream step after a few thousand miles, but we added a few more from the Yukon Brewing Company in Whitehorse while having a great dinner and conversation with @whereintheworldrv last night. We were all excited to sit around a campfire, but by the time we shut it down around 10 pm, the sun hadn't even started to set. #Airstream #lagunitasbrewingcompany #bearrepublic #yukonbrewingcompany #beertravel

So far the gravel guards we got from @sethkhughes have been doing a great job keeping dings off the front of the trailer, well, at least after some modification in the form of two "ears" made from panels I cut out of one of our plastic storage boxes that extend out and above the lower guard, our "smart mud flap girl decals and a "custom exhaust breather" (okay, it just melted a hole through the plastic). #Airstream #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #airstreamtoalaksa

This morning, we left the Alaska highway to connect with the South Klondike Highway for a side trip to Skagway, Alaska. We'll make it there tomorrow over the same route as the historic White Pass & Yukon Route railway, but our stopover for the evening on the Yukon side in Carcross was a nice surprise. Originally named "Caribou Crossing," the town's undergoing a rebranding and revitalization under the Carcross Tagish First Nation which has developed a nice little commercial and cultural center where Wynne ran around under the totem poles with some little friends for a couple hours and we had our best meal out in weeks (including a taster of more beers from Yukon Brewing to go with my Bison burger). They're also repurposing traditional hunting trails in the mountains to position Carcross as a single track mountain biking mecca (complete with a map app). We didn't make it out on any single track, but Wynne did take her longest ride to date on the balance bike over to town from the very pleasant municipal campground. None of this is the town's first attempt at attracting tourism; In 1971, they began a restoration of the S.S. Tutshi, a steam paddlewheel boat built in the town in 1917 and operated for 40 years through the dramatic scenery of the narrow arms of Lake Bennet. Unfortunately, after 20 years of restoration by local craftsman, a fire destroyed it. Anyway, if you're considering the Klondike Highway, this little town's a nice stopover only an hour and a half or so from Skagway. #Airstream #airstreamtoalaksa #carcross #yukon

Kind of a miracle I managed to leave this place without a new tow vehicle. #sleddogs #cariboucrossing #caracross #yukon

The drive from The Yukon, through a small corner of British Columbia and down into Skagway wound up and over White Pass, a high, glacially-carved plateau dotted with hummocks and mini lakes. The thought of putting in a railroad or making the trek on foot is absolutely insane, unless of course there was the promise of a little gold. #whitepass #southklondikehighway #skagway #Airstream #airstreamtoalaksa #liveriveted #myrivetedlife

Okay, this time we are *literally* at 90 degrees in the site, but look at that view! The town of Skagway was pretty mobbed today with at least four cruise ships in port, including the one visible in the pic which we later found out an #instafriend @aaronsellars was on! Fortunately, the Skagway Brewing Company was just out of the walkable 5 block range of most cruise patrons (sorry Aaron!), and we had no problem sitting down for dinner - until, that is, they brought the lunch menu. Oh yeah, Alaska Standard Time is one hour behind Pacific, so it was technically only 4:15. Of course, no one had mentioned that to the cranky "threenager" and the teething baby, so we still ended up drinking our tasters like they were shots and taking most of dinner home in boxes. Back in the trailer with the kids asleep, we were excited to be back on American soil, or rather American cell waves, but frustratingly, data was so slow we couldn't even post one pic. Might have had something to do with the 12,000 or so people from the floating hotels since, as they each blew their horns to depart (one particularly loud burst *just* as the baby had stopped crying and was falling asleep), the connection inched faster. With the port now empty, it's blazing fast and here come the Instagram posts!!! #Airstream #airstreamtoalaksa #liveriveted #myrivetedlife #skagway

The view from behind the trailer. Scattered rain showers last night, and when we turned on the radio for a weather forecast this morning, we learned that more were expected throughout the day. Also expected? 8,800 passengers aboard four more cruise ships. Yup, they do a cruise ship forecast on the radio! Sure enough, as we rolled open the shades, we were again surrounded by these maaaaaaassssiiiivvveee floating resorts. Feeling a bit trapped inside the trailer, @advodna_ann is watching a movie with Wynne while Mae naps, and I just finished troubleshooting why we weren't getting any shore power. In fact, with so many hours of sun, we haven't been plugged in (or needed the generator we bought in Victoria, more on that later) since Tofino more than a month ago. After opening up the EMS (Electrical Management System) I'd installed before the trip - assuming my horrible wiring skills had fallen victim to the rattles and bumps of the road - finding good power on both sides of the box and beginning the same process on the main AC panel, I remembered coming into the trailer one time after a bumpy tow and seeing Wynne kneeling in front of the AC panel door that had flopped open. Worried she could shock herself (although the AC is all behind a screwed-on cover), I pulled her away quickly. Apparently, however, not before she'd flipped the breaker on the AC main. At least it was an easy fix! #skagway

I was beginning to worry that Skagway was nothing more than a set for a cruise ship drop-off, but this afternoon we went a bit behind the scenes, going to the grocery store, spending a couple hours at the public library, picking a few things up at the hardware store, finding a great playground down a side street and eating bad Indian food while trying to keep the kids from watching Bollywood music videos that would have made soft-core porn blush. #lifeontheroad #fulltimefamilies #standoverthereandputyourarmsout #wynneswingspan #totemifyougotem #skagway #alaska

Yeah, I guess 5:45 am as we're trying to get hitched up to catch a ferry from Skagway to Haines is as good a time as any for the electric hitch jack to go out. Oh, yeah, and it was raining. Oddly enough, I was looking for a 40 amp blade fuse in the hardware store the other day as a backup for the one in the jack. That wasn't the problem, rather a squealing sound like it was slipping. With no time to troubleshoot this morning before the ferry, I just grabbed the manual crank from the absolute bottom of a bin in the rear storage compartment and it thankfully lowered! Full disclosure, just the other day I added two more washers to our Equalizer hitch setup 'cause I felt like our butt was looking a little saggy (it's just that easy!), so I've been having to use the jack to lift the rear end of the truck a little more to get the load bars to slip in. I was probably pushing my luck, but it couldn't really have happened at a better time since we're already having a few things sent to the RV park in Haines. If it's dead, I'll replace it with one with a higher load capacity. Of course, now after all that rushing, the ferry is late, and we're just kinda sitting here. #Airstream #airstreamtoalaksa #liveriveted #skagway #alaskamarinehighway

Getting on the ferry was pretty interesting. At the top of a steep metal ramp, a dock worker gave me signals in the side mirror to ease me over the transition and check clearance at the rear of the trailer. At the bottom, when it was determined we wouldn't clear without scraping, two workers on either side simultaneously slid short sections of ramp under the trailer tires to even out the angle. Sharp right turn and then sharp left into the lane against a wall running down the center. Now take a look at the picture and notice that the opposite side of the car deck I'm driving onto is open. That's important because while backing out in Haines (yeah, I said backing out!), the super helpful workers guided me to cut it at the end of the lane to put the back bumper right up against the orange netting on this door (Did I mention that it was open? Like open to the water?) to give me enough room to pull out the other side. Feeling the wheels slip just a bit while climbing up the steep metal ramp to the parking area was the last step in my earning of a ridonculously strong IPA tonight at the Haines Brewing Company. #Airstream #airstreamtoalaksa #alaskamarinehighway

And when we got to the RV park, a huge box of pre-K curriculum Ann had ordered had arrived and was waiting for us.

Pretty comfy little setup on the ferry with a nice kids area (tho not as nice as the one from Nanaimo to Vancouver!) and books to borrow.

The rain's been steadily falling since we arrived in Haines. We have some idea that there are mountains all around us, including on the far side of the water our trailer is parked facing. But inside, I'm weighing options for getting a new electric tongue jack sent to us (although Amazon considers Haines "International" because of the difficulty getting here) while @advodna_ann unpacks a HUGE box of Pre-K activities and curriculum from Timberdoodle she'd arranged to be waiting for us. Everyone else? It's a free for all. #airstream #airstreamwithkids #myrivetedlife #liveriveted #fulltimefamilies #roadschool #doginababyseat