After the helicopter
ride, I wanted to stay in town for a bit – just to grab a few souvenirs.
Walking down the street, I heard my name called out, and one of the guys from
our group was calling to me from a cute little store across the way – he’d already
finished his shopping, but a few of the girls (including my roommate) were
still inside browsing. I crossed to join them – and heard all about the Train
Ride they’d taken, and I shared about the helicopter.
After a few minutes, one of the girls came in – announcing
that she’d found a place that rents scooters. Still on a bit of an adrenaline
high, I joined in – and 5 of us peeled off this little group to head off on a
spontaneous adventure. A bit of paperwork, a quick lesson, a moment of prayer –
and we headed off on our scooters to tour the outskirts of town.
We headed to an old Gold Rush Cemetery, filled with wooden
tombstones – including those of a young couple, killed on their honeymoon by
Indians. We then climbed the hill above the cemetery to another waterfall. Back
on our scooters, we continued along this scenic road, drinking in the
incredible scenery – making stops along the way to see the harbor, to see a
sunken ship, to see the incredibly scenery along the way. Eventually this road led us to Dyea and the
site of an avalanche that wiped out dozens of miners in 1898.
As it hit 7pm, we were 30 minutes from town – with a ship
planning to leave at 8pm. We agreed that it was time to head back. With top
speeds of 35 mph, we floored it back to town, rushed through returning the
scooters, and hopped a shuttle to take us back to the pier.
No worries, we were back at 7:50pm – I mean, we had
10-whole-minutes to spare before the ship would have left us behind in Alaska.
Hahahaha! But we did make it!
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