You may wonder why September 21st is the best day of the year, but it’s not a very big secret. A while back, on September 21st, a woman named Claire had a baby. And that baby was awesome. So because of this awesome baby, September 21st is officially the best day of the year. Look it up… really… On a completely unrelated topic, my mom’s name is Claire.
We had a late start this morning, we were expecting to leave the ship around noon to go rent a car. Trish had booked a car with a company in Skagway. The plan for the day was a leisure drive up to Carcross in the Yukon. Carcross is a really popular place and people reference it all the time. You see, Carcross is “the middle of nowhere”. When you reference “the middle of nowhere” you’re actually talking about Carcross. It’s halfway between Fraser and Whitehorse. Thus, the middle of nowhere.
Trish had invited another couple along. She had met Amanda at the sauna a couple of days ago. So we waited for her at the prearranged meeting time and when she didn’t show up we took off. No point in wasting all our time waiting. Turned out they wasted their money on some stupid shore excursion. Of we go to Skagway, The start of the Yukon gold trail was here, since the boats couldn’t get any closer to the Yukon. Apparently the prospectors would land here and have to carry one year’s worth of supplies to the Canadian border before Canada would let them in. Even with the year’s supply, most of them died. Canada is just a rough place to live.
So we wander over to “Sourdough Rentals” to get our car. There are only two rental places in Skagway, Sourdough and Avis. Avis, being the more popular rental place had run out of cars a few weeks back when Trish had called to make a reservation. Sourdough on the other hand has a ridiculous name, thus less people rent from them. So Trish was able to make arrangements for a car.
When we got to the rental place it inspired nothing but confidence. I mean, wouldn’t you always rent your car from a place that doubles for one of those places that takes period pictures? We walked in to the rental place and there was a camera set up and costumes everywhere. If you wanted your picture taken to look like you were part of the gold rush, you were at the right spot. If you wanted a car though, the only indication that they rented cars was the sign outside.
Trish spotted the employee moving a car outside, pulling it up by the curb. She got his attention and he came in to rent us the car. When we told him that we had a reservation he told us that was good because he’d had to turn 20 people away already today cus he didn’t have any cars. Really guy? 20 people walked in to your picture shop to rent a car? We had a reservation with him and we weren’t sure we were at the right spot. Ok whatever, he can keep his story. Where’s my car? Lucky for us he hadn’t rented our car, but he mentioned that the front tire was a little wonky, but no worries it straightened out at 20 mph. He’d even give us $20 off cus the tire was wonky.
When renting a car if you had the option of A) Regular car for $80 or B) Car with wonky tire for $60, which would you choose if you were driving windy mountain roads? I’d pick A too… But this guy didn’t give us an A option, instead he gave us a C) don’t rent a car and stay stuck in Skagway. So we chose option B), wonky tire it is.
Even with the wonky tire, the road from Skagway to Carcross is awesome. The sights are amazing. There’s a spot along the way where glacier water meets regular water. There was a thin sand bank separating the two. It was really cool to see the difference in colour of the two sitting there side by side. Driving is definitely the way to go too, we saw a train stop at Fraser (the Canadian border crossing) and the passengers got off, the train workers swiveled the seats around and then everyone got back on. Apparently that was a $120 ride, each. So it would have cost us $240 to take a ride to Fraser, stop there for 15 minutes and then ride back to Skagway. Instead we spent $60 on the wonky wheel car and I bet we saw more interesting stuff on the way cus we got to stop all over the place. The only cool thing about the train really was the train itself. It had three engines for fourteen passenger cars, that’s gotta be some crazy slopes uphill.
After Fraser we made our way to the suspended bridge. Normally suspended bridges are in places where people want to cross, but not this one… why would anyone want to cross a ravine in the mountains in the middle of nowhere? Nope, this bridge was built purely for tourists. It was very clear that it was only for tourists when we had the audacity of actually stopping there. Here, our first stop in Canada apart from the border, we met the first rude person of the day. Thanks rude suspended bridge lady, with your effort everyone visiting through there will think all Canadians are jerks.
So we stop at the suspended bridge and Trish has her big camera out. Everything is hidden from view by big wooden fences though, so no pictures to take yet. I go up to the lady who’s just milling about. “Hi” I say. “Hi, it’s 11.50 to cross the bridge” she says as she hands me a little pamphlet. I kinda shrug it off, there’s a food shop and a gift shop about 10 meters passed her. So I kinda walk around her slowly just strolling, and she takes a few steps to block my path. So I’m confused cus there’s still about 5 meters before the little booth to pay, and it looks like a clear path to the shops. So I look at her, she’s clearly expecting me to pay her. “Can we just look around?” I ask pointing at the gift shop. “No, you can not” she spits out apparently offended. Ok, crazy lady, I didn’t really want to see a suspended bridge in the middle of nowhere with no real use. And I’m clearly not going to spend $23 to walk in and have the opportunity to spend more money at your freaken gift shop. Nope, crazy bridge lady, you can shove it. So we walked back to the car and drove off, unfortunately there was no exit at the other end of the parking lot, so we spun around and drove back. The crazy bridge lady so desperately wanted to prevent us from taking pictures that she had walked out from her little tourist ambush location to make sure that we didn’t stop at the far end of the parking lot to take pictures. Crazy.
Carcross, short for Caribou Crossing a.k.a. the middle of nowhere. We made it, and we turn on to the dirt road that leads into town. Well, I presume that it was only a dirt road because they were fixing it. There was a somewhat paved road in town along with the tourist information place. One of the questions I asked to the tourist information lady was “So, what is there to do in town?” Apparently nothing… nope, apart from the self guided walking tour of nowhere Yukon, there’s nothing to do. The gift shop was closed, and that was the only other tourist attraction in town. She did send us to see the world’s smallest desert though.
It turns out that the worlds smallest desert is not a desert at all. It’s an old lake bed. The glaciers used to hang out in the area and they melted, just like they do now. The melt waters made a lake who’s bottom filled up with glacial silt. When the glaciers receded after the ice age, nothing was left to feed the lake, so it dried up. The silt is pretty much ultra fine sand. So there you have it a giant sandy area. So they called it a desert, even if it rains all the time. These people should probably look up the definition of desert… or maybe I need to look it up. Either way, someone is wrong cus I wouldn’t call that a desert at all.
On the way back to Skagway we stop by the American border crossing. The guy asks us if we bought anything, “antlers, fins, wings” and he named a few other strange things. I answer “Nope, all the gift shops were closed” to which he replies “Yep, it’s that time of the year.” Buddy, why the hell do you ask me if I bought souvenirs if you knew that all the souvenir shops were closed? Stop bugging me with your stupid questions and let me cross the freaken border.
Well, we get back to town and I drop Trish off at the boat with all our gear. I then proceed to drop the car back off with it’s wonky tire at the rental place. Nobody’s there obviously because the guy had told us that he would close up shop right after we left. So I toss the keys in the slot and make my way back to the boat. Apparently 15 minutes after Trish ad gotten on the boat they had called her and asked where I was. They scan the cards of people as they get on and off the boat so they always know where you are. Apparently they assumed that Trish had murdered me and dumped me in a ditch in Skagway. Clearly there was no other reason why she would get on the ship without me. They bought her story that I was dropping off the car, but I didn’t believe her… huh? Right, now that you’re sufficiently confused, let’s move on with the story.
Speaking of confused after I got back we heard a lady in the hall. Maybe she was off her meds, or took the wrong meds, or maybe she was just high but I quote: “Houston we have a problem” was the first thing she said. Followed by “Run mom run” and then a few beeps like a truck backing up. Yep, clearly a nut job.
After laughing at the crazy lady in the hall, we got dressed and headed out to the SS United States. The fancy restaurant on the ship. You pay $35 extra per person and you get a fancy supper. That’s right you crazy Americans, not a dinner but a supper. We had told them earlier that it was my birthday and that I was allergic to dairy so they took good care of me. My appetizer had a couple of triangles of philo dough as a decoration and the waiter came rushing back with a pair of forks and a plate to remove the dough while apologizing profusely. Now that’s service. I had some foie gras, some sweetbreads and surf and turf. Everything was really good, but Trish got the most awesome dish. She ordered lobster bisque… yeah, it’s soup, what’s so awesome about that? Well, let me tell you.
The soup came in pieces. First she got a bowl with a little green mound in the middle and lobster chunks strewn about. The mound consisted of leek, pureed and placed dead center of a pretty big bowl. Next there was a side dish for additional topping and a little bowl of cognac cream. Then the waiter poured the soup out of a big teapot, he made big circles around the mound of leek and the soup filled the bowl until only the top of the mound stuck out of the soup. Awesome presentation and apparently it tasted good too.
Trish ate other stuff too… Lobster thermidor, and some appetizer, but whatever the cool part of her meal was the soup. After our food came the cheese cart. Lots of great cheeses, Trish had brought some lactose pills, so she went ahead and enjoyed even more dairy. I wish those lactose pills worked for me. Oh well, all the cheeses looked awesome.
Then we got some dessert, woot. They came out with a cake for me, and the one guy sang “Happy birthday Newton” That’s also what was written on the cake. Maybe they thought that Newton was my first name… I mean, who the hell would have their first name be Jonathan, that’s way too hard to pronounce. Anyways, they assured me that the cake was dairy free, and consisted of strawberries and chocolate and they’ll have it delivered to my state room. Awesome, I’m ready to dig in. Wait… delivered to my state room? I was confused just long enough for the guy to take my cake away. Gah! So he came back with Trish’s dessert and a weird concoction for me. He described Trish’s dessert, she had the Quattro apples, so apples four ways. After his long description of Trish’s desert, telling her what each kind of apple dessert was, he turns to me and says “And for you sir, uh” and then he stares at the dessert in his hand before coming up with “A special dessert!” as a description. It was wafers and dark chocolate stacked together with a little drizzle of caramel. It was pretty awesome. But apparently it doesn’t have a name.
After a delicious meal Trish and I took a stroll and finally returned to our state room. It was pretty late, but some dude showed up with my cake. We had to cut it up to make it fit in the tiny bar fridge though. Quite a shame to cut up such a nice cake but we just weren’t hungry. Tomorrow is another day, and this time the regular restaurant promised me a special dessert too… Maybe my luck on dessert was changing. No more sorbet for me!
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