June 25th: Skagway

Anyone who has played the Oregon Trail may also be familiar with the game called the Yukon Trail. Or at least those that grew up in my household are. Ever since playing that game when I was little I've had the desire to go to Skagway and pan for gold. The excursion that we decided on was called "Sled Dogs, Gold Panning, and 40 Below Zero Experience." I knew that Chloe would absolutely love the sled dogs, and I would get my chance to pan for gold in Skagway. This excursion was my second favorite, despite some bumps. We started of the tour having to wait for a video, unfortunately Chloe was really not wanting to sit through a video and proceeded to scream and cry through most of it (Much to the distress of one older lady who kept giving me the dirtiest looks. I mean come on you are going to a tourist destination that is going to have young kids. Young kids aren't happy and don't like to sit still sometimes.) Anyways....after the video we moved to another area to listen to a man named Matt Hayashida talk about his experience racing sled dogs in the Iditarod. Chloe was asking for a nap at this point and so while Brian listened I went into a corner as far away from people as possible and tried to keep her happy.

The little black things hanging are actually little booties that each of the sled dogs wear so they don't get ice between there toes, because their feet are so hot running so long and hard. Each bootie is worn for about 60 miles.

Finally after nearly twenty minutes of presentations we were able to move back to where the sled dogs were being held. We lined up along a fence and waited for the sled dogs to be released. Chloe was so happy to see the dogs running past her. Some were so friendly jumping up on the fence to lick people on their faces. Chloe's mood definitely improved at this point. After everyone had got a chance to pet the dogs Matt harnessed up the dogs for a demonstration. One dog in particular he pointed out for us to watch. This dog was the one jumping up and licking people, the most friendly of them all. Within seconds of being attached to the harness his whole demeanor changed. He started howling and crouching down and jumping so hard, ready to pull the sled. It was pretty intense.

I'm ready to GO!!!

After the demonstration of the sled dogs racing the dogs were put away and out came the spotlight of the show. The PUPPIES!!! These sled dog puppies were so cute. I'm not really a dog person, but these guys were adorable. We weren't allowed to let them down on the ground, so Chloe wasn't able to hold them by herself, but I think she liked our solution even more. We would hold onto her while grabbing the puppies into our other arm. This put the puppies right at prime licking level.

Chloe getting some licks.

So many licks!

Cute puppy!

Next was the 40 Below Zero Experience. I was not sure what Chloe would think since she's never experienced anything besides a California winter. We went into a room filled with winter coats and we were happy to see they had one the perfect size for Chloe. Once everyone was dressed warmly we headed into the freezer. They had a throne made of ice that we thought was pretty neat. We joked with Chloe that Elsa had visited and this made her smile. Once we left the freezing room Chloe did not want to take the winter coat off. She was so cold even though it was above 70 degrees outside.

On the ice throne.

She was so cold. It sadly didn't seem too different from Rexburg to me....

The last part of our excursion was the gold panning. Again we had to listen to yet another presentation while a man dressed up as a miner explained the how to for gold panning. Since we were outside Chloe was happy to just run around and the miner didn't seem to mind her running around. After the presentation we were presented with our pan and went over to the water to start panning for gold. It was interesting to do, and crazy to see how quickly the gold would seem to appear in our pans. Chloe didn't actually do any panning, but had fun playing in the water. With our 3 pans we collected 3.5 grains of gold, which they said was worth about $27.34.

It was a fun experience in Skagway. After getting back from our tour we decided to take the shuttle into the main town and look at the shops. Since it was past Chloe's naptime she ended up falling asleep in the stroller, which made for a nice leisurely stroll back to the ship. We were able to look at some of the trains used for the White Pass on our way back to the ship too.

Chloe slept right through the stroller bouncing over those wooden planks.

Trains!