Seattle and beyond

“The bluest skies you’ll ever see are in Seattle”. That may or may not be an interesting bit of hyperbole. It all depends when you are actually able to see blue skies in Seattle. We will reserve judgement for when we return there in a few days and spend 11 days in the area, including up to Vancouver again. The little bit we saw was overcast and drizzle. Americans have a tendency for superlatives – the bluest skies, the biggest utes, the longest motorhomes and RVs, certainly the largest meals, and (and as Mr Pot, I hesitate to make remarks about kettles), the largest folks you’ll ever see. To me it all points to a society that probably takes more than its fair share of the world’s resources on its own unnecessary comfort and excess. Anyway, that’s my commentary for the day.

Getting back to Yellowstone, we left on the day we should have been touring it – bright, warm and sunny (warm in a relative sense of course). Never mind, we enjoyed the countryside of Wyoming and Idaho before we landed at Spokane Washington for a mid way sleepover. On the way we spent a few hours at Couer d’Alene, a lovely little city located on its eponymously named lake. Unfortunately it seems an expensive place to live, but by the look of the boat harbour there are enough people with out financial challenges.

We had a night at Seattle before heading for the harbour and embarking the Explorer of the Seas of the Royal Caribbean line. She is a biggy – 138,000 tonne and over 4,000 passengers and 1,000 crew. The “explorer” part of the name is real. In her early days she carried a crew of oceanographic and atmospheric scientists, though it seems that the research now uses automated data gathering technology.

Jenny’s great anxiety has been of seasickness and rough seas. Thankfully we have had neither, possibly due to the war chest of chemicals Jen brought along as risk management. We did not, however, take account of the changeover of seasons, so Jen picked up all the springtime allergens, progressively worsening for her with infected sinuses. She visited the ship’s doctor for antibiotics and other medications, so she is feeling a wee bit better and her spending capacity seems undiminished.

The ship offers plenty of opportunity to extract money from the captive audience, and the various outlets are fairly aggressive in seeking to attack our weaknesses for spending. The only thing that is modestly priced is the coffee, but that is barely drinkable to our refined Aussie coffee-tastes.

We ported first at Juneau, yesterday. We did the tramway (cablecar) up Mount Roberts, where we had an energetic walk around its beautiful tracks, offering splendid views of the waterways, mountains, glaciers and the city. We are always reminded of how much this landscape is different from our experiences at home.. We were comforted by the signage that indicated bears were not allowed on the tram. We were warned of cold weather (8c) but it was very warm and we had to strip off our jackets.

The city of Juneau is interesting – quite a small place for a state capital. The town feeds voraciously off the teeming tourist who daily invade the town armed with dollars, and apparently needing to but diamonds and, mysteriously, Tanzanite. The old buildings remain, but the produce now seems to be jewellery and t-shirts.  There were 4 cruise ships in port while we were here and there were smiles all round town from the shopkeepers and tourism peddlers. It was a late sunset when we pushed away (10.30pm) and it was a very pretty sight as the sun lingered on the western skyline for quite a long time.

Today we are in Skagway and will be taking a short train journey into the hinterland.

Skagway and the White Pass Line

The day was somewhat overcast and cool, so we donned jackets, fully expecting that we would need to discard them. We were mistaken. The White Pass Line is just the first part of a rail line to the Klondike goldfields, rising high along the Skagway River Valley, cutting through steep mountains and treacherous gullies. The train has some old steam engines but we had the more modern diesels, while carriages are a mixture of restored and replica vehicles. It is a stunning journey up to the White Pass and into Canada. The poor hopefuls of the Klondike Gold Rush had a further 1,000 kilometres to go.

The misty rain did not diminish the grandeur of the journey. Skagway itself is a very small place, again touting for the dollars of tourists, but a bit more charming than Juneau. We had a sandwich and beer at the Red Onion Saloon where we were served by “ladies of the night” whose ample bosomly features were thrustingly displayed.

Well, tonight we wend our way back to Seattle via Tracey Arm Fjord and glaciers and Victoria (where we will spend a day).