Day 13

                                                                  Alaska Day 13

                                                         Anchorage to Minneapolis

                                                                    9/5/11

     We needed to get up early today.  Luggage would be picked up from our room at 6AM and we’d be driven to the airport at 6:45 for our 9:30 flight.  We waited outside for some time, talking to some of the other people taking this early shuttle, before Kris found out that we’d been waiting in the wrong spot and the bus had left without us.  This is what happens when Randy is no longer in charge.  Fortunately the bus was alerted in time and came back to get us.  On the way to the airport we got a brief tour of Anchorage.  It is Alaska’s most populous city with 290,000 people, comprising 40% of the state’s population.  We learned from the bus driver that its temperatures are moderate, usually 20-30 degrees in the winter, occasionally dipping to zero, and that the moose roam freely in the streets.  On the way to the airport we got a stunning view of Mt. McKinley 300 miles to our north, clear as could be.  The air quality there is amazing.  We also got to see a few moose along the roadway.  Moose plus Denali; not bad for a shuttle ride to the airport. 

     We took a flight to Seattle, had a 1 hour layover and then got on our plane to Minneapolis.  Alaska is one time zone earlier than Pacific, so we will have lost three hours by time we get back home.  I’m sitting on the plane now typing while Kris is reading about Alaska on her kindle.  I know that I must return to civilization and work, but in these last 13 days, I’ve grown fond of living out of a suitcase and having my biggest decision of the day being whether to order red or white wine at dinner.  

     I’ve learned a lot about this region.  I knew nothing before about the Klondike gold rush of 1897.  I knew nothing about gold panning, sluicing, or gold dredges.  I knew nothing about Alaskan cruise ships, gold key status, the Neptune lounge, and the secrets of Soduko.  I knew nothing about the rail cars, luxury coaches, catamarans, Westmark hotels, and ships that comprise the Holland America empire.  I knew nothing about what whales, grizzlies, and moose look like in their natural habitat.   I knew nothing about the vast beauty of Alaska and the Yukon where the forests and mountains go on, uninhabited, as far as the eye can see.  And finally, I knew nothing of the true majesty that is Denali National Park, a place where a world goes on unspoiled just as it has for thousands of years, protected from the only species that can truly upset the balance….man.  Now I know.

Denali (Mt. McKinley)  300 miles away!

Mt. Rainier (shot from airplane near seattle)

Day 12

                                                                       Alaska Day 12

                                                                  Denali to Anchorage

                                                                            9/4/11

     Our train ride down to Anchorage wasn’t until noon so after sleeping in, we decided to walk the three mile path over to the park and the train depot to get just a brief amount of movement in our legs before the 8 hour train ride.  When it appeared that we were further away than we thought, we picked up the pace a bit so as not to be left behind.  As it turned out, we made it in plenty of time.

     The ride was fairly uneventful.  Again the scenery was stunning and we had a great view of it in our domed car.  They offered two meals on this ride but we ended up just opting for dinner.  We sat across from a couple from Sioux Falls, SD who were very nice and worked for Sanford Health.  They let it slip that Sanford’s plan is to buy up every clinic available.  They made it sound like this was akin to Sherman’s march to the sea and if we were in Sanford’s path we’d soon be bought up also.  Watch out Mayo.

     We noticed as we got closer to Anchorage, there were more signs of civilization to be seen with the occasional river boat or house on the lake.  Kris made the astute observation that it was funny to see cars stopped for us as at railroad crossings as opposed to the other way around.   My only regret was that we were eating at the time we passed through Wasilla.  Someone who had seen it described it as a strip mall, and no, there were no sightings of Sarah Palin vigorously waving to us as we headed through town.  We did however see some moose along the way along with some trumpeter swans. 

     Eventually we made it to Anchorage and were transferred to our hotel, the Hilton.  (There was a Westmark in town, but it was full.)  We said a sad goodbye to Randy, but before we departed we filled out an evaluation form giving him excellent ratings and some effusive praise in the comment section.  He wanted to get invited back to work next year by Holland America and I assured him that if our comments were any indication, he’d not only get invited back but they might even ask him to run the company. 

     When we headed off to our room, no longer under the protective wing of Randy our tour guide, we felt that indeed our trip was coming to an end, in fact it was likely that we’d soon again have to carry our own luggage.  After a brief sojourn to the bar, we retired to our room.  One of the peculiarities about the way the Hilton was constructed was that the rooms are at 90 degree angles to each other so you could look out the window and see right into your neighbor’s room.  Next to us, sitting at a desk, we could see one of our photo obsessed fellow passengers busy at his computer likely culling through the ten thousand pictures he had taken that day.  (My grand total for the trip was 762, of which 53 of them inexplicably were of me posing shirtless in front of the bathroom mirror.)  Later that night, I took a peak out the window, and there he was at 3 in the morning still plugging away at his computer.  I’m glad I’m not that guy.

Looking intently for Sarah Palin and other wildlife

Taking drink orders

Beautiful Alaska Scenery

More spectacular scenery

Our view of Anchorage from the Hilton

Another view of Anchorage

Day 11

                                                                       Alaska Day 11

                                                                   Denali National Park

                                                                             9/3/11

     One of the reasons that we picked the tour that we did is that it offered “Double Denali.”  That was the precise term that is used by Holland America to denote trips with two nights in Denali as opposed to one.  Not knowing at the time what we wanted to do in Alaska, we astutely recognized that two nights in Denali would be far better than one, perhaps even twice as good, so we excluded any trip that didn’t involve “Double Denali.”  The rest of our trip planning involved finding trips with minimum cruise time and maximum land time fitting into the window of time we had allotted.  We had decided to go late in the season on the recommendation of our son, Nathan, who had been there the year before and not been devoured by mosquitos.  We encountered no mosquitos on this trip and we got to see the fall colors in Denali which lasts about 2 weeks there. 

     Denali, is an amazing park.  There is one road into it that goes west 90 miles and private cars are not allowed past the 15 mile mark, although park busses are.  As I mentioned yesterday, the park is huge and it seems that most of it is inaccessible to the average visitor.  You can hike into it, but except for a few trails near the visitor center and at mile 15, there are no trails that traverse the park.  This is done to minimize human impact.  Even when you are at an area where there are no trails you are asked to walk side by side so as to not create a trail.  It was very inspiring to see the efforts being made to keep this place unspoiled, essentially the way that it’s been for thousands of years.  In the center of the park is Denali, also known as Mt. McKinley, the highest peak in North America at 20,320 feet, or about 1000 feet higher than Nathan and I had been on Mt. Kilimanjaro.  They say that only about 30% of the park visitors are able to see it due to likelihood of cloud cover.  Today we’d be fortunate enough to be in that 30% group. 

     We spent the morning hiking up to the top of the Mt. Healy overlook.  This was a vigorous hike and took 1 ½ hours.  Kris made it up most of the way but chose not to go further when it started to get steep.  On top I was treated to great views of the Eastern and Southern valleys and its wonderful tapestry of fall colors.

     The afternoon would be the highlight of our stay there.  It was a narrated bus tour into the park.  We started at 1:30 and got back 8 hours later driving around 55 miles into the park before turning around.  In addition to the spectacular scenery we saw caribou, moose, Dall Rams, and grizzly bears.  It was all very exciting.  We also got to see the magnificent sight of Denali, aka Mt. McKinley.  What a lucky day for the two of us. 

     We celebrated our adventure with a late dinner in the lodge and went to sleep with amazing memories of the day.

Tapestry of colors

Bad hair day at Mt. Healy Overlook

That's a caribou

More incredible colors

That's Denali

Still Denali

A lone sleeping cuddly Grizzly

The Three Bears

Dall Sheep

We were one of the 30% that got to see Denali

Moose that thinks he can't be seen behind that bush

Day 10

                                                                       Alaska Day 10

                                                                    Fairbanks to Denali

                                                                             9/2/11

     Today we headed to Denali.  The mode of transportation was by train.  I knew we’d be sitting a long time so I got a run in along the river in Fairbanks prior to departure.  Then we were off to the depot where a shiny train with two locomotives awaited us.  We boarded one of the rail cars on this train specific to Holland America called the McKinley Explorer.  This car was a completely glass domed double decker rail car, seating around 80 people with your assigned seat on the upper level and the dining area below.  As we rolled along the countryside the views were spectacular.  There was a “guide” in each railcar that pointed out interesting sights and provided amusing commentary along the way.  There was also a bartender at the front and although it wasn’t quite noon yet, from the look of it there appeared to be a lot of Bloody Marys being dispensed to our geriatric bunch.  Maybe this is the key to living well into your eighties.  Overall, it was a very pleasant way to travel.  Midway into the ride we had breakfast below and got to know one of the other couples on the trip that was seated across from us.  They were a lovely retired couple living in Sun City Arizona and after a while it became apparent that all four of us shared the same views on the political spectrum.  Once that was established, knowing that we were all amongst our own kind, we each let loose with bold political statements from the left that would have made Keith Olberman proud.  At noon, after a four hour trip and about 120 miles, we arrived in Denali and were taken over to our hotel, the McKinley Chalet, about 2 miles from the park entrance.

      After we got settled we went back over to the park and watched a dog sled exhibition.  The park maintains a dog sled team to patrol the park in the wintertime.  They are apparently out for weeks at a time as the park is 6 million acres and equal to the size of Massachusetts.  Even though I’m not a true dog lover, I did get a kick out of watching those Alaskan Huskies pull the sled in the demo over 100 yards.  After that we did some hiking around the visitor center and then took a shuttle back to the hotel.  After our own private happy hour we headed across the way to Prospector Pizza and Ale House which advertised 49 beers on tap.  Perhaps because it was the end of the season, they appeared to be out of around 40 of them but we still managed to find a couple that were great and filled ourselves up with plenty of pizza in preparation for the long eight hours of bus sitting that lay in wait for us tomorrow.    

This was the classiest rail car on this train.

Kris, dining in style, while the woman across from her struggles with her bread

Interior of the McKinley Explorer.   Some of the passengers are getting restless awaiting the next round of Bloody Marys. 

A nice scene with our locomotive visible on the right

Taken just before the train derailed

More spectacular scenery

Sled Dogs at Denali

I recommend this place.