North to Alaska: 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.