With all the movies and TV shows recommended via social media feeds, you’d think Netflix concocted this virus in a lab themselves. I mean, dropping Tiger King in the middle of this “stay the hell at home!” order across the country and world?? Netflix, you knew EXACTLY what you were doing…

But kidding aside (because COVID-19 is no laughing matter), I have a plea to the millions, heck, billions, around the world sitting on their couch or looking out the window wondering if COVID-19 will lay siege on their home by way of the mail delivery person or pizza boy: BINGE READ instead of BINGE WATCH.

Hear me out…

How do you feel after watching episode after episode or installment after installment of a TV show, movie, or miniseries? You feel like you have to “eat” more. “One more episode.” or “What else can we watch?” This is addictive behavior, ya know. That’s what today’s TV shows, like drugs, are designed to do: make you crave more.

Now, TV, for instance, has never delivered stronger writing and production. The product is top-notch. This is nothing against our creative brethren in the film and TV production industry (aka “Hollywood”), but this request/soft demand is more a response to the environs in which we reside today.

Sitting at home and consuming film or TV isn’t exactly “good for the cranium.” Sure, a nice respite of your work at home (or worse layoff) is required at times. For screen-oriented entertainment, there are inherent truths we cannot forget. You consume film and TV by sitting and watching and listening.

As the late acclaimed writer and thinker David Foster Wallace put it, “Television is really darn easy. You sit there, you don’t have to do very much.”

You are a hard drive for download. There is no interactivity, nor real stimulus other than emotional firings of the brain.  In other words, it just revs you up. And when the credits are rolling, your brain enters that addictive state — “I want more.” Heck, Netflix doesn’t even GIVE you the option. They just auto-launch the next episode or related show. Hence, the extended, and fruitless, binge sessions.

Open the page…

Have you read in healthy sessions lately? Perhaps an airplane or during a daily commute? Well, that’s gone. So, maybe before you put your head down at night?

Another question to ponder: Have you ever thought about replacing whatever time you watch TV with reading? Non-fiction, fiction, poetry, etc. Doesn’t really matter.

I implore you: Try BINGE READING. Read that book sitting on your nightstand or end table. Engross yourself. Reading is a very personal experience (more on that at the end).

The art of the written word isn’t about the author and all the hours and energy he or she invested to deliver XX amount of words for your provocation or enjoyment… screw their egos. But what about the conversation? A conversation that is a true escape for your mind. A world, a life, a character, a place, a distant land not ravaged by lockdown.

Your brain fires off dozens of levers for imagination, inspiration, motivation, understanding, empathy, compassion, and more. Reading delivers dynamic elements — both right and left sides of that noggin — that you can USE as fuel for your own work and purpose and fun. Oh, and stories on the page can be quite entertaining! How many times have you heard, “The book was so much better than the movie.” There’s a reason for that…

During this COVID-19 pandemic, perhaps one of the greatest gifts we could give our minds is the gift of time in order to read the written word… instead of absorbing light emission activity generated on a screen. Maybe it’ll also deliver a stabilization. There is a great big, world out there. Let’s read all about it. And by the time we’ve filled ourselves with prose and poetry, the world will reopen for us to experience again.

And I leave with you this from Carl Sagan:

“What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

***

If you’re looking for something to read, one of The Creator Studio’s members, David Salvi, wrote a new science fiction novel, CANAAN (2020).

This science fiction adventure is a thrill ride from start to finish.

Purchase Here (Kindle or Paperback): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B086H2FKV9

Miss our adventures in Tombstone Provincial Park (Yukon), Dawson City (Yukon), Kluane National Park (Yukon), or backcountry hiking? Not see my escapade on the side of the mountain? Overlook the time we watched three grizzlies fishing? Check out parts 1-6 of the Klondike road trip at the links!

Alaskan cruises have definitely risen in popularity over the years, and because of its location on the Chilkoot Inlet Skagway is a stop on most itineraries. My family did an Alaskan cruise when I was 14, but I hadn’t yet discovered my interest in the Klondike Gold Rush so its historical significance was wasted on my brace-faced ass. Now that I’m a little older (the little wiser part is debatable), I was ready to look at Skagway through a different lens on our recent road trip through the Yukon and Alaska.

Not a bad view from the ferry

As a consummate travel planner, it’s hard for me to not have every detail mapped out ahead of time, but the key to a great road trip is having a flexible mindset and our journey to Skagway is the perfect evidence for why that is. We knew that we were going to Skagway, but we decided two days before to take the ferry there from Haines. In retrospect, that’s really the only way to do it because the hour-long ferry ride gives some pretty spectacular views of glaciers, waterfalls, and mountains. It’s also not like a typical ferry where you’re just standing on a deck the whole time. It was more like a mini-cruise ship with cabin rooms for people doing multi-day jaunts and viewing areas on either side of the ship. We parked ourselves in lounge chairs under some heat lamps (it was low 50s and had a misty rain) on the solarium level and got a first row view of nature’s best.

Most of our fellow shipmates (ferry mates?) were hikers who looked like they were getting ready to take on the famed Chilkoot Trail. Originally a Tlingit trade route, the trail experienced a boom in foot traffic at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush (1897-1898) and thousands of people took the 33-mile trek from Dyea, Alaska up to Lake Bennet, BC aka the Klondike. Even in the best of conditions the trail is not for the faint of heart, and the best of conditions by Alaskan standards is still pretty tough. Hundreds of people died on the trail, went bankrupt, or simply gave up and went home. To this day there are dozens of artifacts people abandoned along the trail route, and the hike is referred to as the “world’s longest museum”. Jack London did the trail, and it was the setting for his classic, Call of the Wild, so if you’ve read the book you probably have a good idea of the conditions they faced.

Check out the dame in the 2nd floor window

Not looking to be heroes, we decided to skip the hike and spend our time in Skagway eating fresh  salmon, drinking local craft beer, and soaking up as much Gold Rush history as possible. When we disembarked the ferry, it felt like we were stepping back in time. The main drag of downtown Skagway looks like it’s frozen in the year 1898, the year Skagway was booming as a provisions stop for those looking to make their fortunes in the Klondike. Although the streets are now paved, the sidewalks are still wooden boards and the buildings colorful and “old-timey”. Nowadays, the population is around 1,000 and the town thrives on the tourism that comes in with the mega cruise lines. It was late in the year for cruises, so stores were advertising their “end of season” sales where all the old people could get 40% off their kitschy t-shirts of cartoon prospectors holding lumps of gold near their crotch that say “I found my gold nuggets in Skagway!”

Salmon sandwich aka heaven on a plate at Skagway Brewing Co.

We had lunch at the Skagway Brewing Company, a huge space that had equally awesome beer and merch store (seriously, the merch was so good). We both had the Chilkoot Trail IPA and El tried the Spruce Tip Blonde ale, and we both had our first taste of fresh Alaskan fish. I had a grilled salmon sandwich that has spoiled me for life (seriously, I haven’t had salmon since b/c my expectations are too high) and El had halibut fish and chips that were so flaky they practically fell apart on their own. After lunch we strolled down Broadway St., got a magnet to add to our collection, and got called at by can-can girls dangling their legs from their seats in the second-story windows of a saloon, enticing people to come to their show. Sorry, ladies, if you’re not Diamond Tooth Gertie’s, I want no part of it. We also stopped in a shop, Inspired Arts, with locally-made jewelry carved out of mammoth ivory. When you hear the word “ivory”, your first thought is probably of the unethical and illegal trade of elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns. Mammoth ivory is so abundant in Alaska/Yukon that a coffee shop we visited in Dawson City had an actual mammoth tusk mounted on their wall.

The Visitor Center definitely scratched my Gold Rush history itch and taught me all about the different trails (Chilkoot and White Pass) people took to the Klondike, how the Gold Rush took off, the people like Jack London and Martha Black who were associated with that period of history, and the impact that period of history had on the Tlingit (pronounced “Clink-it”) and Tagish tribes. Spoiler alert: It was mostly negative. El and I also spun the ‘Wheel of Fate’ where we learned that if we had attempted the Chilkoot Trail in 1898 I would have turned back on the trail and El would have turned back at the rapids. I’m surprised my fate wasn’t “slip and fall into the river” given my tendency to be a klutz.

One of the characters we learned about in the Visitor Center was the legendary con-man Jefferson Randolph “Soapy” Smith, so we decided to check out his and others’ graves in the Gold Rush Cemetery. Apparently the townspeople of Skagway got fed up with Smith’s schemes, and he was shot dead in the street after crashing the meeting of a vigilante group trying to stop him. What a legend. A display at the cemetery’s entrance tells the stories of the people buried there, and boy are there some doozies. Take Ella Wilson who was famous in the Red Light District and was killed due to “an anonymous strangling”. Or “Unknown Man” who was killed when the dynamite he strapped to his chest exploded when he tried to rob a bank. The cemetery itself isn’t the most authentic because the tombstones have been updated so their writing is legible, but it’s worth a visit for the stories alone.

Much like how we wanted to see the spot where gold was first struck in the Yukon, we wanted to see the Chilkoot Trail at its source, so we drove up the mountain to the trailhead that overlooked the town below. Signs put up by the NPS gave information on hiking the trail but also provided details on the partnership between different tribes and the US government to give a true historical account of the Gold Rush. My inner nerd was more than satisfied by our visits to the Visitor Center, the Gold Rush Cemetery, and the Chilkoot Trail, so the rest of our time in Skagway was going to be dictated by craft beer and fish.

We had originally planned on camping in the RV park for the night, but given the dreariness of the weather we booked a room at the famous White House B&B, a super cute space located close to downtown. We checked into our room, grabbed a cookie from the communal jar, and made our way out for the night. Our first stop was the Happy Endings Saloon, which was deceptively NOT a brothel but rather a sports bar that had a huge banner out front that advertised how “Cornhole changes lives!” Not only were they showing the Chicago Bears game on one TV, but they were playing a National Park Service live-stream of ACTUAL BEARS on another. It was so meta.

No quickies for these two at the Red Onion Saloon

Next up was the infamous Red Onion Saloon, a bar that now offers “quickie” tours of its former brothel space for $10. We had missed the last quickie tour so we saddled up at the bar for a beer. The place was packed because the former governor, Bill Sheffield, was there for a book signing.  A woman in a can-can outfit read out a list of his accomplishments, which included making Skagway a tourist spot by expanding the railroad, sang the Alaskan state song, and then followed it with some song about a knife going through hot butter. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

We started chatting with the bartender at Red Onion and learned that he was actually from Duluth, MN, and his sister-in-law graduated with Elliot. Later that night we found ourselves chatting with some of the workers of Skagway Brewing Company, and they also happened to be from Minnesota. Apparently Minnesota isn’t north enough for some folks!

As we made our way towards Skagway Fish Company at the cruise ship port, a guy in a straw hat and old-time car from the 40s honked his horn and drove down Broadway. I said to El, “Wait, I’ve seen that guy before”, and I looked down at the Skagway Visitor Center brochure I had in my hand. Sure enough, the same guy was on the cover. Me in that moment:

via GIPHY

After keeping our nautical restaurant streak going at dinner, (El got some pan-seared salmon and it was my turn for halibut fish n’ chips), we made our way back to a practically empty Skagway Brewing Company. We were two of only seven total people sitting at a small bar on the first floor, and we were the only ones who didn’t work there. It being the end of the season, and most visitors were already back on their cruise ships, Skagway becomes a ghost town around 9:30pm. So if you’re looking for a wild night out in September in Skagway, you’re gonna be disappointed. Fortunately for us, El and I are freaking old and were a-ok with heading back to the B&B after a pint.

Downtown Skagway

When we made our way downtown for breakfast the next morning, we saw two additional cruise ships in port and Broadway St. crowded with people holding their selfie sticks. When we went down for coffee earlier at the B&B, the manager we talked to made it seem like there wouldn’t be any more ships arriving because it was so late in the season. She herself was planning to head back to NY until the following summer, so we were surprised to see so many cruise-goers taking a chance on a late-season Alaskan vacation. We got a tasty breakfast at the Sweet Tooth Cafe, where the food was classic and the servers dressed like it was still 1898. Satisfied that we had maximized our time in the town, we loaded up our car and started off on the last leg of our Klondike road trip.

Skagway may seem like just another stop on a cruise itinerary, but it has so much more to offer than just a $10 t-shirt or quickie tour. The town is rich with history if you know where to look, has some of the freshest seafood you’ll ever eat, and its people take its responsibility of making sure the Gold Rush era is accurately portrayed and includes more than just the perspective of the white prospector seriously. In short, Skagway deserves your attention as a must-visit travel spot…

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We got the updated S&P Dow Jones CoreLogic Case Shiller Chicago area home price indices this morning along with the indices for 19 other top metro areas and averages. Keep in mind that this data is for the 3 months ending in January so there is no effect from the coronavirus scourge reflected yet in the numbers. Yet, this home price data is pretty disappointing for Chicago.

First, although the Chicago area had a 0.6% year over year increase in single family home prices, that was the lowest rate of appreciation among the 20 metro areas tracked. New York, with a 0.8% increase, was second from the bottom of the list. The Chicago area also compares poorly with the nation as a whole, which appreciated by 3.9% from last year.

Second, condo prices broke the 86 consecutive month winning streak of rising prices for both single family homes and condos with a 0.4% decline. So that’s the first condo price decline in more than 7 years as you can see in the graph below. The rate of appreciation for both single family homes and condos has been on the decline now for a couple of years so this was not totally a surprise.

Chicago area single family home prices have shown annual gains for 87 consecutive months but condo prices fell for the first time in more than 7 years.

Case Shiller Chicago Area Home Price Index By Month

If you look at the graph below of the monthly index levels you can see how price levels are flattening out. That’s pretty depressing when you compare them to the red trendline that I calculated from pre-bubble single family home prices. We are currently 29.3% below that line.

We also remain pretty far below the bubble peak with single family home prices falling short 15.6% and condo prices 8.9% below the peak. That also means that single family home prices are lower than they were during the entire period from June 2004 – November 2008 and condo prices are lower than the period from April 2005 – December 2008.

Of course, we have bounced back from the bottom quite a bit. Single family home prices are now up a total of 38.5% from the depths of the market while condo prices bounced back by 50.7%.

You can also see the seasonality in the numbers from the graph, with us currently still in the winter down cycle. Single family home prices fell 0.9% from December and condo prices fell by 0.5%.

The Chicago real estate market still has a long way to go before catching up to bubble peak prices.

#CaseShiller #ChicagoHomePrices #HomePrices

Gary Lucido is the President of Lucid Realty, the Chicago area’s full service real estate brokerage that offers home buyer rebates and discount commissions. If you want to keep up to date on the Chicago real estate market or get an insider’s view of the seamy underbelly of the real estate industry you can Subscribe to Getting Real by Email using the form below. Please be sure to verify your email address when you receive the verification notice.

How to Adapt When Social Distancing Upends Your Social Structures

When you’ve suddenly added the roles of teacher, head chef and janitor to your usual responsibilities as a leader in your company and parent to your children, it’s time to reassess some of your normal expectations. In short:  you’ll need  to let go of some of your control and perfectionism.

You’ve carefully built social structures into your life, to help you meet your goals and get it all done. But now your office, daycare, child’s school and recreational activities have all been moved to one location: your home.

There are a lot of resources about how to effectively Work From Home (WFH), which focus on the leader/worker. In fact, LinkedIn notes:

“Since January 2020 ‘remote working’ searches on LinkedIn Learning have tripled as both employees and managers increasingly look for advice on how to navigate the challenges of working remotely and managing a remote workforce.” 

LinkedIn offers a free 16-module course.  That’s good as far as it goes, but a missing perspective seems to be the impact on parents who are working from home with their kids, who are now also at home. Given the closure of most schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic, parents are often required to also home school their children.

The Type A parents who are now at home are often perfectionists.  In the conversations I’ve had with leaders/parents this week who have suddenly made this transition, it’s proving impossible to keep up all the old “guidelines” and optimize every element of the situation.  For example, many parents want to limit screen time or  make sure family meals are as healthy as possible. But unless there is a way to bend the space-time continuum, a new perspective needs to be taken.

Balancing vs. Optimizing… Put Aside Perfectionism (For Now)

If you can’t optimize work, school and home life any longer, you can balance them. Your new coping strategies are patience, flexibility and managing expectations. Accept that (for now), life can’t be perfect.

While many Type A personalities typically maintain highly-organized work spaces and home living spaces, we no longer have the luxury of separate spaces. One home can’t be perfectly organized when it’s now the singular space for living, working and schooling.

Being available to your kids during working hours may be necessary, despite workplace demands.  As a parent, you don’t want to send the message that Mommy and Daddy are not available, despite the fact that we are living through a pandemic. It’s necessary to manage expectations with colleagues, and ask for compassionate understanding.

But sometimes you’ll just have to get a little work done in peace. Let those screen time guidelines slip a little bit. An extra viewing of Frozennever hurt anyone, and it can get you through a Zoom videoconference. Perhaps that broadcasting-from-home BBC dad would have benefited from turning on some Peppa Pig.

And after a stressful day of managing WFH with kids, you can take some joy in being the hero parent who opens a can of SpaghettiOs for dinner. It’s what they really want anyway, and you can always make a healthy meal tomorrow. The important thing is that you will help your family get through these troubling times safely and feeling loved.

Local Business Series: Emma Rose Hair Care

Hey Ty! Thank you for allowing us to get to know more about your hair services and Emma Rose hair products.

Please start by introducing yourself.

Thanks so much for having me. I am Ty a mother of two wonderful boys, Z and Ky. Professionally, I’m a licensed hairstylist at Beauty Me Hair Salon located in Hillside IL. I am also the owner of Emma Rose Hair Care products.

Awesome, What do you love about being a hair stylist?

I love making my clients look wonderful which helps  them feel amazing both inside and out.

I’ve sat in your client seat and you did just that for me. Tell us about some of the services you specialize in?

I specialize in braiding techniques and healthy hair care. I also do weaves and natural styles.

That’s great! I’m excited to learn more about your hair products. Can you tell us a little about them? 

So we have 11 products in the Emma Rosé Haircare Line. All the products provide moisture, strength and shine. Great for all textures of hair, with allowing and providing great maintenance for hair. Also Vegan- friendly

That’s great! What would you say makes your salon experience different from other stylist?

My client experience is top notch to say the very least. My goal is to make each client look and feel like a celebrity.

I love that! I also love that you are big on Hair care. Can you share some tips on how you help your clients maintain healthy hair and tips we can do at home?

Hair maintenance is the key. It’s important to use the proper products for your hair type. I also like to implement strategies such as using shirt like material instead of towels when drying hair. Wide tooth combs are amazing for detangling. You should also try to wear protective hair styles that don’t require tension. Making sure to oil/ moisturizer hair when having braid styles. Maintaining a Healthy lifestyle is also important because what we eat or drink can interfere with the growth of our hair. Also, DO NOT forget to wear a satin head wrap/ bonnet or sleep on a satin pillow case, to also protect the hair.

Thanks so much those are amazing tips! What advice would you give a new stylist looking to start a career in hair care. 

My advice would be to enter into the hair industry with an open mind. Use fear to motivate you to the next level. Be willing to learn, and try new techniques. It’s also important to explore different opportunities and go above and beyond average.
That’s great advice. Before you go you gotta give us a Lookclusive, What can we expect from Ty the stylist this year?

Right now you can take advantage of our March Madness promotion that offers 30% off of braids and styles. This Spring you can expect an exciting pop up shop!

Awesome Thank you so much!  Tell everyone how they can find and schedule services with you?

You all can find me on Instagram @tytatehair or Facebook: Ty Tate. To book an appointment visit our website https://square.site/book/HQRKNV8G5FRJ7/beauty-me-hair-salon-hillside-il

To purchase Emma Rose hair products contact us by phone 1-872-888-9873

Miss our adventures in Tombstone Provincial Park (Yukon), Dawson City (Yukon), Kluane National Park, or backcountry hiking? Not see my escapade on the side of the mountain? Check out parts 1-5 of the Klondike road trip at the links!

If you’ve never gone backcountry camping before, you’re in good company. I didn’t have my first “haul all your gear 13 miles up a mountain” camping experience until last year, and let me tell ya, it is hard. But it’s also addicting. The physical endurance coupled with the serenity of the nature around you is a pretty exhilarating experience. And if you’re gonna do it, why not do it in the Yukon?

Feeling cute, might delete later. IDK

Just because we got out of a hair-rising situation on the side of Observation Mountain didn’t mean we were home free. We still had a night of camping and 22km of hiking ahead of us before we were back in civilization. We had decided to swtich up our trip itinerary and take the ferry from Haines, Alaska (not to be confused with Haine’s Junction, Yukon) to Skagway. Haines, Alaska was at least a three-hour drive from Haine’s Junction, where our car was parked, which meant we had to leave for our return hike before the sun had even come up. As quietly as possible, we used our headlamps the next morning to pack up our tent and set out for the 22km hike back to the parking lot. Even though we had gotten plenty of sleep (except for at 2am when I woke up and stupidly started thinking about Jason Voorhees), we were still bone-tired and bruised from the previous two days’ hikes, and the first few kilometers uphill were just a slog. Once clear of that we had a relatively easy hike out, and the weather was much more pleasant than our hike in. There was, however, a lot more standing water and the water in the creeks we crossed had risen to as high as my butt. How I didn’t lose my balance in the freezing rushing water and just wipe out in the creeks is nothing short of a miracle.

By the time we reached our car, 6 hours and 59 minutes later, we had nothing left to give. With boots totally caked in mud and bodies covered in bruises and scrapes, we collapsed in the front seats of our rental car. Like some kind of miracle machine, the little Coleman cooler we got at Walmart had kept our Gatorades almost ice cold while we were gone, a mercy granted to us after a long three days of pretty grueling hiking. We downed those things like we were Tom Hanks catching rain in Castaway and also inhaled a bag of Cheetos like it was our job…and then inhaled some Combos…and Doritos…and Dr. Pepper, pretty much undoing all the physical labor from the three previous days.

Haines, Alaska

Our fellow campers had told us that the route from Haine’s Junction to Haines, Alaska was one of the most scenic in the world, and they sure as hell weren’t lying. We were getting spoiled by all the spectacular views on this road trip, and the drive through the Yukon, parts of British Columbia, and then finally Alaska, was easily top five all-time. There weren’t a lot of trees at first but what the first part of the drive lacked in trees, it made up for in glaciers. Fall hadn’t quite shown up yet in BC, so everything was still a lush green and we didn’t see a single soul on the road. Once we crossed the border into Alaska, however, we had inlet water to our right and rock face (and plenty of rock slide warning signs) to our left. As we drove, the number of people fishing on the inlet water seemed to skyrocket, no surprise given how many die-hard fishers make the pilgrimage to Alaska. At one point in the drive, we stopped to use the bathroom at a roadside restaurant whose parking lot was filled with tractor trailers hauling boats. I walked in and it was like in the movies where everyone stops and turns to look at you. At least a record didn’t screech to a stop, and the hard core rap that was playing (which in retrospect seems wildly out of place for the wilderness surroundings) kept on rolling. It was a moment so awkward that I debated addressing the crowd. Kinda like the time we were at dinner outside in Minnesota and I looked down to see a frog on my thigh. Startled, I pushed my chair back to jump up, forgetting that I was seated behind a step. I fell completely backwards, and when I jumped up to look at my stunned fellow diners, I yelled out, “I’m okay! I hate animals!” because I couldn’t get out the word ‘amphibians’. But in the case of the gangster rap fisher people of Alaska, I kept quiet.

As we got closer to Haines, we drove through an eagle sanctuary and saw six bald eagles just standing on a dried river bed. It was surreal and seemed like the most American thing since I dove off the Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown.We spent the night in Haines, a very small town on a peninsula in the Chilkoot Inlet. Most of the restaurants and shops had already transitioned to off-season hours so our dining choices were limited to bar food, pub food, food from a bar, or food from a pub. After all that hiking, there was nothing else we’d rather have eaten, and we gorged on anything fried we could find at the waterfront Harbor Bar & Restaurant. After dinner, we grabbed a beer at the Fogcutter Bar, the definition of a “locals’ place”. In short, the Fogcutter was everything we’d hoped it would be. Not only did it have a ton of kitschy stuff on the walls and ceiling (there was a Molson Ice sled hanging over us) and its own merch, including a t-shirt of a moose playing pool which I now regret not purchasing, everyone knew each other by name. El got a spruce tip beer, and when he asked who brewed it, the bartender replied, “Paul. His bar is down the street.” Even though it was technically a brewery (Haines Brewery), to the people who lived there it was just “Paul’s bar.”

Delicious cup o’ joe in the Bear Den Cafe

Our ferry to Skagway was at 9:30 the next morning, so we got up early and grabbed breakfast at the Bear Den Cafe, a quintessential greasy spoon decorated with Loony Toons wallpaper, moose antlers, weavings, and random odds and ends like an Alf lunchbox. I loved it because it was the type of place where you get your own drip coffee and use one of the mugs from the random collection they’d assembled. They’re famous for their “bear-ritos” and, still famished from our hikes, I went with the ‘Big Grizz’, a cholesterol sky-rocketing beast stuffed with grilled steak, onions, hashbrowns, and cheese and smothered in delicious sausage gravy. The food and coffee were both indescribably delicous, and when we were home I even ordered a bag of the coffee online. The owner was an old hunter grandpa type, and since we were the only ones there he opened the adjoining gift shop early so we could get a magnet. I picked up a Haines magnet with a photo of a grizzly in the river, and El made a comment that we hadn’t seen a grizzly yet. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but El’s been really into bears since our Banff trip, sending me photos of them on Instagram and reading up on the different species, so he had been pretty disappointed not to have seen one on this trip. Surprised, the owner matter-of-factly told us to go up to Chilkoot Lake, and that if we saw “people stopped on the road and looking at something”, they were looking at a bear. He was so sure that we’d see a mama bear and her two cubs that we couldn’t resist heading in that direction.

Apparently this was the “wrong” kind of bear because it wasn’t a grizzly.

The drive to the lake was itself entertaining because of the countless seagulls, Alaskan loons, and even a brown eagle having a grand ol’ time on the inlet water. Shortly after we started driving we saw some people standing on a bridge and decided to park our car. Sure enough, like the diner owner said, they were looking at a juvenile black bear sniffing its way through the riverside grass. Adding to the scene was a bald eagle perched on a rock not more than twenty feet from the bear. The bear was pretty far away and tough to see, but the fact that we were able to watch one in the wild was enough for me. As we walked back to the car, I excitedly said to El, “Yay! You finally got to see your bear!” to which he somewhat disappointledly shrugged, “Yeah, but it wasn’t a grizzly.” I said to him, “We’ll keep driving, but you might need to take what you can get, my friend.”

We drove on a few more minutes, and the road narrowed to where two cars couldn’t pass each other without one of them going into the river. Despite this, there were cars parked and people out with cameras. When we saw what they were looking at, El pulled our car over so fast that you’d think he was trying to set a world record. Across the river, not more than 400 feet from us, was a full-grown grizzly sow and her two “cubs” (they were f**king BIG) pawing through the water, fishing. We had an unobstructed view from the safety of our car and watched the bears as they stood on rocks and swiped at the fish around them. They were successful more than once, and it was surreal to see them carry a salmon in their mouths to the riverbank and feast. Even though all three of them were attempting to catch fish, it was obvious they were working together with the way they were navigating the rushing water. We must have taken a hundred pictures, but nothing could fully capture the feeling of seeing grizzly bears in the wild. We could have stayed there for hours, but we had a ferry to Skagway to catch, so we eventually tore ourselves away from the river and made our way to the terminal.

We still had plenty of vacation left, but somehow the road trip felt complete. It felt like we had accomplished something, and it was hard not to see the hand of fate at work: If we hadn’t eaten breakfast at the Bear Den, we wouldn’t have seen the gift shop. If we weren’t the only ones there, the owner probably wouldn’t have opened up the shop early for us. If I hadn’t picked up a grizzly magnet, El wouldn’t have mentioned that we hadn’t seen a grizzly. And if he hadn’t mentioned that, the owner wouldn’t have told us exactly where we could find some. Every decision that morning led to that moment: the moment Elliot finally got to see his bears…

Up next: Claim jumpin’ in Skagway

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