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THE WEIRS TIMES, Thursday, July 15, 2010
by Peter Grasso Contributing Writer
It was decided, during
the early winter, that af- ter retirement I had spent too much time trying to catch up with all of the “Little” things and not enough time enjoying life a bit. That being the case, the Haus Frau & I de- cided that it might be nice to take a cruise & get away from it all for a short
while. I had never been on a cruise before but my wife had been on a num- ber of them. I guess this tells you that we have not had a vacation together in quite a while. Having been to Alaska,
on a fishing trip in 2007, and been in awe of that state, I was convincing enough to elicit coopera- tion in planning a trip that
NORTH TO ALASKA
buildings are structured after the design that was in vogue during the gold rush era. However, I must say that I was over- whelmed by the numbers of shops selling jewelry. At each of the three
879 Route 3
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Capt Pete & the boss in front of one of the many glaciers viewed during the cruise. This glacier was 6 miles wide & 72 miles long (250 feet high).
specifically concentrated on “Rest & Relaxation. Early in June we flew up
to Anchorage and spent an evening there. The next day we travelled the Seward Highway down to Whittier in order to board a cruise ship headed south. Stops were scheduled at Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan, with a detour up into Glacier Bay.
Skagway was the first
stop along the way. This was the jumping off point, back in the late 1800’s, for gold miners heading for the Yukon Territory. The town itself is quite quaint. At the time of the gold rush, the population was over 20,000. Cur- rently, during the winter months you are looking at about 800 souls. The
stops we had planned for a shore excursion and the Skagway stop was highlighted by a trip up through the mountains on the White Pass railroad, which winds through the mountains for over 30 miles, up into British Co- lumbia and on to the Yu- kon Territory. It is amazing when you
think that ALL of this was done by HAND. Pick, shovel and dynamite. As you reach the top of the mountains, all I can say is that looking out the win- dow of the train was like looking out the window of an airplane. You were that high up. Unbeliev- able. Jewelry stores aside, it
was an interesting little town. The main street was paved, all the rest, gravel. One shop of in- terest was the Red Onion Saloon, the interior of which has been preserved in much the same state as it was back in the days of the miners. The Red On- ion Saloon, well that was a saloon and house of ill repute. Believe it or not, they
also had a Harley David- son shop there. No bikes on display, nor did I see any around town. They did sell Harley clothing and told me if I wanted to buy a bike, it “Could be arranged”. After spending the day
in Skagway, we boarded the ship and cruised down to Juneau, which is a bit bigger than Skagway and a bit more modern in ar- chitecture. See GRASSO on 36
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