Tuesday June 17th
 SKAGWAY, ALASKA
 The ship arrived in port at 7 am but it gets light early up here - we read that sunrise was at 3:44 am and sunset was expected to be at 10:19 pm! That makes for a long day but luckily there are blackout curtains in the cabins. Logan again chose peach waffles for breakfast and we had time to relax for a few hours before our noontime excursion. The crew did an emergency drill in full gear, while we wandered around the ship.

The kids decided they had lots of time for more swimming and Logan demonstrated his 'splashy crawl'

After an early lunch, we met on the pier to board the White Pass Yukon Railway, which followed the trail of the hopeful thousands of the Yukon Gold Rush days.

The train chugged along the edges of steep mountains, a three hour trip up and back, with a tour guide narrating stories of the gold rush and pointing out various interesting sites.

We were allowed to stand out on the platforms between the cars, and Jodie and Logan especially wanted to be there as we approached one of the tunnels. "Take a picture in the tunnel" said Jodie, and so I did.....

The guide had advised us to watch out for wildlife, and all of a sudden, Grandpa cried "BEAR!" - everyone in our train car looked to the side and saw a decent sized black bear standing on a rocky slope beside the traintracks - apparently as soon as the train passed him by, he ambled down the slope and across the tracks. When the train returned to Skagway, we checked out a few souvenir shops and headed back to the ship. Tracey and Jason had reservations for the upscale Pinnacle Grill, so Grandma, Grandpa and the kids had a table for four in the dining room.

(Grandma seems to be having a bad hair day - I don't remember it looking like that!)

I thought it would be nice touch to lend Jodie a bracelet to match her outfit, and showed her the magnetic beaded piece I had bought on one of the Caribbean cruises. It could be worn as a necklace or a bracelet and she enjoyed trying different styles between courses of our dinner. When we left the dining room around 7:30, Jodie wanted to return to her cabin to get ready for bed and have some story time before her parents returned from their dinner, so Logan and Grandpa went in one direction, Jodie and I in another. She had no trouble leading me to her cabin, but wasn't able to open the door with her keycard. She tried again and again .... I tried again and again .... before the awful realization hit me .....Jodie was wearing her keycard on a lanyard around her neck, and magnets and keycards do not mix! We headed for the main desk in the lobby for help. While Jodie giggled, I introduced myself as "Grandma" and said I was supposed to be tucking Jodie into bed while her parents had a relaxing dinner, and explained about the bracelet. The very pleasant young lady checked the card, said "Yep. It's demagnetized alright", and made up a new one. I wrapped the magnetic beads around my ankle to keep it as far away from our cards as possible. We just barely had time to get back to the cabin, get Jodie into pj's and teeth brushed before her parents walked in. Whew!

I returned to my cabin to find it empty - the boys were watching the first few acts of the song and dance show, but soon returned so Logan could get to bed at a reasonable time. The cabin steward left a lovely towel sculpture on the bed, along with chocolates on the pillow of course, and we settled into our comfortable beds to be gently rocked to sleep.