Wednesday July 22, 2009 - Mt. McKinley, Alaska

We had another outrageous day........another train ride from Denali to Telkeetna, Alaska, and then a shuttle to Mt. McKinley Lodge. This morning we were on our own until about 11:30 AM when we had to meet the train to Telkeetna. We woke up early as usual, had a quick cup of coffee and danish and headed out for a short hike around the Denali Princess Lodge property. After checking out the area, which is quite a nice piece of property, we headed over to the train station. On the way we stopped off at the visitor center at the entrance to Denali National Park, and saw a brief movie on the parks wildlife. We boarded the train as yesterday, headed up to the dome car and were on our way. After a few minutes I "needed" to go down and hang out on the outdoor platform with all of the other avid photographers. I spent the next 4 hours on the outside platform taking hundreds of photos .......... forests, streams, rivers, mountains, beaver dams & lodges, and everything else we passed as we traveled through the wilderness. The train rides, both yesterday and today were outrageous. It was hard to digest the magnitude of the Alaska wilderness and hinterlands. My photos can in no way capture what we saw, nor can any words that I write. I always hear about Alaskan cruises, which we will embark on in a few days, but I think we would have missed so much of the beauty of Alaska by not taking the train rides and seeing the vastness and beauty of the Alaskan interior. After another great day on the train, we arrived at our first destination, Talkeetna. We had dinner at a real local hometown "joint". It was great homemade cooking......... the menu was on a chalkboard, and we were not given a check at the end of the meal; we had to walk up to the counter and tell them what we ate, they added it up and then we paid. Pamm, Gail & I had spinach lasagna and Alan had a reindeer "pastie". Everything was delicious and quite inexpensive compared to what we have been paying in the Princess lodges. The whole place could seat 27 people. After dinner we took our one hour shuttle to the Mt. McKinley Lodge where we spent the night. Unfortunately, we could not see Mt. McKinley today because it was hidden behinds the clouds. We were fortunate that we saw it yesterday on the train ride.

It is now 10:30 PM and it is totally daylight outside.....very strange. Off to bed and up early tomorrow for our full day bus ride to Cooper Landing in the Kenai Peninsula for two nights.