Train / Bus to Denali

 

Hilton Hotel in Downtown Anchorage, Alaska. I suppose we could have walked to the train station, but the bus took us.

The train cars were domed glass, comfy, they (sold)

Served us a lovely breakfast, there was nice narration along the way. Very nice. BUT it was the Denali EXPRESS tour that we were on, and express it was! They got us up there, showed us around, and they got us back. A LOT of driving (riding). Lots and lots, hours and hours.

We saw absolutely no wildlife from the train. Oh, maybe one moose. Donna missed it since she was using the bathroom at the time.

Also, the train didn't take us all the way into Denali. Not on this tour. It took us to Talkeetna, we got off, wandered around, boarded our coach, drove the rest of the woy to just outside of Denali, where our quaint and rustic hotel was.

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I'm not really sure just what day it is. Maybe Monday?  But we are IN Denali today. More bus time, of course.

 But FIRST, we rode the train. That was on Monday. We . . . .

 Let me start again.  I'm typing this as we are cruising into Valdez, Alaska, after being onboard for less than one day.  But all the days are a blur, and most of the days have no internet access, soooo, I can't get onto my blog to see what I've posted and what I have not. I can type on my "computer" (my phone, actually) with a keyboard I brought along, and save the words. But then the pictures will have to come later, and the text added, to my blog WHEN I get internet access and IF it has enough bandwidth to upload photos!  Plus, my siblings have taken photos I'd like to share; however those only sometimes come through because they have iPhones and mine is an Android.  Ah, First World Problems.  

We are Cruising!  

We boarded a lovely train in Anchorage, rode to Talkeetna, got off, boarded a bus and rode it the rest of the way (hours) to Denali National Park area.  We stayed in the Grizzly Bear Inn, just outside.  INside Denali, there are larger venues owned by major corporations, but this place was quaint and lovely and right on the river, so we could hear it all night, flowing by our room. Lovely.  The rivers here are BIG.  There is a lot of water in Alaska. A LOT.

We had purchased some lovely sandwiches at a grocery store (Cubbies) along the road to Denali and ate those when we got to the Grizzly Bear.  Butch found us a common room to meet and eat and play games in!  I think it was the Breakfast room for other guests, not us, but we used the tables and chairs. Hmmm.  We also used the heat. I hope we remembered to turn it way down when we left . . . :-\

It is light late, so we have to remember to GO to bed at a decent hour.  We all did, thinking we could get a good nights' sleep and sleep in, as baggage call wasn't until something like 8:55 a.m.

NOT.  Carol the Tour director made a mistake and we had to have ALL our stuff out the door by 7:30 am!  That was a rude awakening for sure.  We were kind of awake when our door was knocked loudly on, but nowhere near ready to GO anywhere.  But we scurried and managed to hurry up and get there. And wait.  

We had to wait for a Park Service Bus to come and get us.  Only buses are allowed into Denali.  It's so big.  So broad, So wide. So wild.  (so wet! it was drizzly all day)  Only 30% of the summer visitors to Denali National Park actually SEE the peak because is is always shrouded in clouds.  We were part of the 70% who DON'T get to see the peak because there were clouds.

BUT,

we DID see Dall Sheep, Moose, Caribou, Snowshoe Rabbit and a cute porcupine.  

It was a lot of bus time, but we had a bus driver who narrated well. It's way rugged and big. There was fresh snow on the ground, but not in the midst of winter. Spring was there, there were buds and lichen and stuff that the critters eat. The mountain is so huge it MAKES it's own weather system.

We had a couple of stops IN the park. One at a cabin where we had a little informative talk from our guide, Mike. MY Mike stayed on the bus. I wish I would have brought along the umbrella for the little walkie-talkie I went on. I didn't realize I would be out in the drizzle for so long and got a bit damp. But it was a sweatshirt and it dried in the bus fairly quickly.

We all ate lunch near the Denali Visitor's center area. LOTS of people. Busloads, actually! I bought a magnet, naturally. ;-)

We loaded onto our "Coach" with Carol and Steve, our Tour Director and driver and headed to Anchorage, a 4+ hour drive south from Denali.  We never did see the mountain top.  But that was OK. It was still nice and pretty and (repetitive) with trees and mountains and rivers galore.  A few smattering of animals on the way, but not many. It was rare to see them.  I thought it would be like Yellowstone, but it was not.  Well, even in Yellowstone you have to be in the right place at the right time to see animals, but since the areas is so much smaller, you see them more often.  DNP and Preserve is the size of VERMONT.

Almost Massachusetts.  Crazy big for a National Park.

Anyway, back to Anchorage we went.  Arrived at the Hilton Hotel downtown once more.  We all six ate at the BrewHouse Restaurant.  There was a very long wait, but it was a lot of good food.

Mike and I split a dinner of Fish and chips. I saw the serving sizes and opted for that.  The amount of fat caused me a bit of grief later, but not too bad.

Poor Mike has a very sore right knee that is keeping him very uncomfortable. His shoulder is mostly doing okay.  But he had tummy troubles that night as well!  I slept through those, but we were in a nice Hotel, so no problem.   Have tummy troubles while riding a bus for hours on end would have been way worse!

On Wednesday morning, we were to leave Anchorage about noon, so we all went out to breakfast. Sort of. We walked over to the Bear Paw Cafe and found it was closed. Oh well. Then we decided to walk 5 blocks to the Snow City Cafe, but Mike opted NOT to walk the 5 blocks and went back to the hotel restaurant to eat.  It was a long wait at the Snow City Cafe, very busy and full, but the food was fine and we had a nice time perusing a fun gift shop on the way back. I even bought a little souvenir!

At noon we boarded our bus/coach to Seward. Carol lost her voice, so we got to listen to Steve narrate the drive, so that was nice. He's from Seward.  

We boarded the Norwegian Spirit in the evening.

Ate Dinner at a lovely restaurant, unpacked, explored a bit (and let Mike rest).  Ate way too much dinner and had heartburn during the night. We had to re-arrange the covers/duvet blankets to make it fit our temperature needs in the middle of the night. 

Our inside cabin is nice!  There's good lighting, unlike our cabin on the other cruise we went on in Athens. It's a corner one and "L" shaped so feels roomier.  It is SO NICE to be unpacked and have our clothes hanging and in drawers instead of in suitcases.  

We are going to have SOMUCHFUN!