Passing by Kluane Lake, YukonCopyright 2007 Lydia Hinshaw
SKAGWAY, AK -- Any road trip can have weird turns and this one has kept us adjusting on the fly.
Thursday, during the gorgeous 400-mile drive from Tok, AK, to Whitehorse, YT, we discovered that our cell phones no longer work in the Yukon. We had no problem making calls when we last passed through the area in April. We've come to depend on the phones to make lodgings reservations, but this time were forced to show up in Whitehorse without one.
The motels that weren't full wanted $200 per night, so we wound up in an old haunt, the Robert Service Campground, where we pitched our tent for the first time all summer. It wasn't the perfect solution, particularly since Prince Charming has been battling something that sounds like pneumonia, but it got us through the night.
Friday morning the Prince insisted he felt much better, in a voice so faint that I marched him into a walk-in clinic, where a doctor saw him instantly and prescribed something powerful, which we had to buy in a Canadian drugstore, which means it was a bargain. By Friday night, he seemed much better.
Friday afternoon, we drove to Skagway, a planned side trip to visit friends we worked with last summer. Skagway dangles on the coast at the end of the road, 100 miles from the Alaska Highway. We thought we'd be retracing our route north to the Alaska Highway Saturday morning to continue our drive south.
Just for the heck of it, we decided to see if there was space available on Saturday morning's ferry from Skagway to Bellingham, WA. We'd originally planned to leave here by ferry on Sept. 17, before the boat broke an engine and went out of service for months.
We'd already gotten a refund for that canceled trip. But a subsequent change in my work schedule allowed us to leave Denali two days early, which put us here in time for the Sept. 15 sailing.
We got to the ferry terminal moments before it closed, and learned that the M/V Malaspina had space for the car and just one cabin left for us, with a departure time of 8:30 Saturday morning. I've never seen Prince Charming whip out a credit card so fast.
We'll be in Bellingham Tuesday morning, which is a lot faster than we could do it on land, especially with the Prince under the weather. He'll be able to get some rest, and I won't be cooped up in a car all day with a coughing-machine.
We'll even get a vacation from computers, which is fine by me. In Whitehorse I found a new book by Dick Francis and another by Barbara Vine, so I know how I'll be spending my at-sea time.
Thursday, during the gorgeous 400-mile drive from Tok, AK, to Whitehorse, YT, we discovered that our cell phones no longer work in the Yukon. We had no problem making calls when we last passed through the area in April. We've come to depend on the phones to make lodgings reservations, but this time were forced to show up in Whitehorse without one.
The motels that weren't full wanted $200 per night, so we wound up in an old haunt, the Robert Service Campground, where we pitched our tent for the first time all summer. It wasn't the perfect solution, particularly since Prince Charming has been battling something that sounds like pneumonia, but it got us through the night.
Friday morning the Prince insisted he felt much better, in a voice so faint that I marched him into a walk-in clinic, where a doctor saw him instantly and prescribed something powerful, which we had to buy in a Canadian drugstore, which means it was a bargain. By Friday night, he seemed much better.
Friday afternoon, we drove to Skagway, a planned side trip to visit friends we worked with last summer. Skagway dangles on the coast at the end of the road, 100 miles from the Alaska Highway. We thought we'd be retracing our route north to the Alaska Highway Saturday morning to continue our drive south.
Just for the heck of it, we decided to see if there was space available on Saturday morning's ferry from Skagway to Bellingham, WA. We'd originally planned to leave here by ferry on Sept. 17, before the boat broke an engine and went out of service for months.
We'd already gotten a refund for that canceled trip. But a subsequent change in my work schedule allowed us to leave Denali two days early, which put us here in time for the Sept. 15 sailing.
We got to the ferry terminal moments before it closed, and learned that the M/V Malaspina had space for the car and just one cabin left for us, with a departure time of 8:30 Saturday morning. I've never seen Prince Charming whip out a credit card so fast.
We'll be in Bellingham Tuesday morning, which is a lot faster than we could do it on land, especially with the Prince under the weather. He'll be able to get some rest, and I won't be cooped up in a car all day with a coughing-machine.
We'll even get a vacation from computers, which is fine by me. In Whitehorse I found a new book by Dick Francis and another by Barbara Vine, so I know how I'll be spending my at-sea time.
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