Swaying through the mountains.

Lee notes that when you narrow up wheels on a vehicle, there is more chance of swaying as you drive. Same goes for trains. The White Pass and Yukon Railway (125 years old) is a narrow gauge railway that twists and turns through the valleys and canyons. It originally ran all the way to Dawson City in the gold rush days but now goes only to the Canada Customs location. It sways a lot.

After the train leaves, you can stand on the platforms between the rail cars. That's a great place from which to take pictures. On the front of our train, a group of teenagers takes command of the platform and proceed to discuss school, boys and clothes. Lee respectfully ask if he can lean over to take a photo or two and they all breathe in to let him by. Lee starts to take some photos when one of the girls elbows him in the back, causing his Le Mans 24 Heures ball cap to rock forward, touch the top of the camera and fly away into the rocks and ponds. Wonderful.

The views are breathtaking. As we approach the downward run into Skagway, the passenger cars violently bunch up together on their connections. A little disturbing at first. The conductor explains that today they are using a couple of older locomotives that have brakes similar to an RV, so he says. The engineer lightly touches the brakes and the locomotives lock up causing the trailing cars to jump forward on their connections. No problem, everyone on board still has their cameras, cell phones and children.

We arrive in Skagway to be met by the American Customs dude. He goes through each passenger car looking at our faces and our picture in our passport which we have been dutifully asked to hold up next to our face. We are soon off and strolling into downtown Skagway.

As I'm typing, I am swaying. No, the unit is not moving. Hmmm.

Lee wandered to the train car connection areas, and had his own "adventures". Fortunately it was a hat and not a camera that got knocked out of his hand. I guess we better take in another Le Mans race!

It was, at first, very disconcerting to have the train cars bunch up and jerk us in our seats. You get used to it, like the swaying.

We did arrive safe and sound and in one piece. Kudos to the engineer.