Today, we were in Skagway. It’s a small town and by small, I mean the population is 832, only half of which live there year round. So, yeah, small. We got up half an hour early to my mom dropping my mended sweater off. We’ve pretty much decided that we are forbidden from sleeping until the wake-up call goes off. Off our balcony, we saw this. According to the tour guides, these are not graffiti, but old ship registries.

We got breakfast, caught our bus and were off on our first tour, a garden tour of the city. Most of the buses just said ‘Skagway’ on them, but I saw this one and took a picture of it, only to find out it was ours.

It was beautiful. There was a sculpture and art garden where we saw this beautiful painting,

and the Jewel Gardens, where they serve tea and food using things grown in their gardens. During the tour, they gave us flowers to eat, including chive blooms and lovage (super celery). We also saw some the biggest rhubarb plants. They say that they get about six feet high. Here’s a picture of the model train that runs through the garden.

After this, we walked around town for awhile, bought stuff for people, found an internet shop (2.50 for half an hour, which was much better than .75 cents per minute on board the ship). I made the post for day one, quickly checked my email for spam and, good god, who recced He Defines Me, because I’ve been getting slammed with people favoriting me and reviewing it (not complaining, but I would love to thank them)? The internet shop was half grocery store, half internet café and was as rustic as the rest of the village.

At the internet café, I found a Mountain Dew. The ship only has Sprite, Coke and Diet Coke. So, really nothing for me. Here’s me in front of the town and the beautiful backdrop of mountains, modeling my Mountain Dew.

That accomplished, we walked back to the ship (fifteen minutes), dropped off our purchases and got on a bus for the Liarsville tour - a town so named for the reporters that had to lie to get people to go there. In Liarsville, I actually ate Salmon, note, me eating Salmon:

There was a show and then we panned for gold. Oh, and they were filming the tour, so we’ll be on ShipChannel22 tomorrow. Here’s hoping my parents don’t watch it. The whole thing was very Renfair-esk, including dirty jokes and corsets.

The bus dropped us off in town again and we walked around for a while, trying to find gifts for people. We did, but the most amusing thing that happened was when we stopped in a knife and totem shop. It was small and we were browsing around and we hear the two men that worked in the store whispering behind us, "Say hi." "No." "Just do it." and then a quite, but louder, "Hi." Me and Squishy turned around and smiled at them, said ‘hi’ back. Then the whispering resumed. "I told you." "I know." "mumble mumble... I like her hair." I turned around again and one of them stood up straighter and said, "Yeah, I said it," like it was insult or something. The other one was wide eyed and bright red and I just kept smiling and said, "Well, thank you, it’s not easy to do." We talked with them for a while. They asked how we got roped into a cruise and we said it was my parents 30^th wedding anniversary, to which he looked at his co-worker and said, "see, told you." His poor co-worker never did managed to stop blushing. The only thing we could think is that all these tourists are either between forty and sixty and here we were, two moderately attractive girls in our mid-twenties without men or children attached to us. Poor guys. Months in a city full of sagging boobs and screaming brats. I’d hit on the first youngish woman that walked in the door, too. I didn’t get a picture of them, because Jon might have strangled me for getting anywhere near two men who were quiet obviously hitting on me.

In one of the shops, we saw this for sale. I seriously almost bought it to put in front of the tv. (sorry, baby, and I’m not even sure if I’m apologizing for not getting it, or even considering it).

Lastly, a picture of the walk back to the ship. Well, okay, the limp back to the ship, because between my ankle and Squishy’s blisters, we weren’t exactly the most spry people going down the path.