Making Tracks at McKinley

(I hope these aren't boring you. If they are, let me know. I'll switch it up!)

We arrived in Whittier (just outside of Anchorage) in the wee hours of the morning and had to be off the ship by 7 a.m.-ish to make our train. Since it was so early, there was no workout. It was also wet. Again.

A dreary early morning in the rain. 

We'd been given packets of information the day before, with instructions for what to do with our luggage, where we should meet in the morning, what our itinerary for the day was, etc. We followed those instructions like good little cattle. It was absolutely pouring outside as we were herded down the gangplank, and into the train station.

Given the set-up, I assume it rains here a lot. 

And just like that, we were off. We were seated in a booth (facing bench seats with a table in the middle) with a young couple from North Carolina. Her parents and grandparents were in the booth across the aisle from us.

Excellent viewing potential, as you can see. 

(Grandpa found out Jim owned a trucking company and took a shine to him immediately "Say, you know I've heard old truckers never die. They just get a new Peterbuilt!" he'd say at least once a day for the rest of the trip and laugh and laugh.)

The ride was four hours. Everyone was on the lookout for moose, bear, eagles and caribou. When one was spotted, everyone would jump to their feet and rush toward that side of the train. We saw a lot of trees. A couple of moose. No bears. A few small towns. A half dozen people ... almost as rare a sighting as the moose. And we learned a lot, as there was a tour guide (and a bartender!) on each car, pointing out the important stuff and giving us a history lesson.

What I found most interesting is that the further inland we got, the more likely we were to see folks living off the grid. When/if those people wanted to get on the train to head to civilization for supplies, etc., all they had to do was stand at the tracks with a white flag waving. The train is required to stop and let them on and take them as far as they wanted to go.

We arrived at the train station in Talkeetna first and then had the option of a) staying in town and sightseeing, then boarding a bus for a 45-minute ride to the lodge or b) going directly to the lodge and come back to Talkeetna that day or the next day, since we had two nights at this resort.

We opted to see Talkeetna first, grab some lunch and then head to the lodge. Why? It was still pouring and we knew that Mt. McKinley would NOT be visible anyway, so why not use the crappy day in town and hope the next day would be perfect for viewing the highest peak in North America and hiking.

Talkeetna is where you go if you're climbing Mt. McKinley. From there, you hook up with a tour company to fly/get you to the basecamp at 5000 feet.

Some say this was the town that the TV show Northern Exposure was emulating, though we also heard that about Skagway, so who knows.

What can I say about Talkeetna? It was small. And wet. And probably charming, but we were wet and cold and it was kind of lost on me, to be honest.

There was another "block" if you can call it that, but really ... this was
it. To be fair, we were kind of gift-shopped-out by this point of the trip.  

Not a sign you'd find on every summer vacation.

After spending a couple of hours in town, we found a bus and headed toward the lodge. 

The lodge was a complex, owned by the cruise line. There was one main building with a bar, restaurant, coffee shop, enormous fire place, dozens of sitting areas, the "events" desk, board games ... and it was packed to the gills since it was raining and no one was outside wandering the beautiful grounds and hiking trails. Then, there were 20 or so buildings with hotel rooms, plus other restaurant buildings, lovely fire pit areas, lookout decks ... and not a single workout room to be found.

Our building and my umbrella. We got to be
good buddies, me and that lovely umbrella. 

Our bags were already in our room and we spent part of the afternoon doing a little laundry. And watching it rain. We also went to a presentation given by a local guy who climbed McKinley. His photos were spectacular and I confidently decided that mountain climbing was not in my future. 

The next day, the rain continued. In fact, we got word that parts of Denali had been closed and people had to be evacuated due to high water.  

But we didn't let that slow us down! We looked for the notoriously shy Mt. McKinley and then quickly knew that we could kiss that goal goodbye.

This was one of two viewing decks at the main
 building. And below, the sign that taunted us ... 

While the staff insisted the damn mountain really did exist, you couldn't prove it by us. This is what we saw for two solid days:

He tried. He really tried. More than once.
He's adorably optimistic, my husband. (And,
you'll notice he's wearing a sweatshirt he
bought -- again -- because we didn't pack coats.)

We saddled up for a wet and wild horseback adventure that took us just into the boundaries of the national park, up steep trails and down slippery slopes. We chatted with our new North Carolinian friends. Though it doesn't sound very exciting, it was nice to have a little time to decompress "do nothing" for a while.

Then, we put our suitcases outside our room so they could be moved to Denali in the morning as we got ready for another 4-hour train ride to the biggest national park in the world! You'll never guess what happens to move me to tears ...

Exercise: Zip, zero, nada, nothing for two mornings in a row. Didn't get much tourist walking in either. Rode a horse for an hour or so, but that hardly counts as exercise. Made several trips up and down stairs in the process of doing laundry.
Food Splurge: Shared reindeer nachos with Jim on the train. Knocked back a yummy blackberry margarita at the lodge. With fries.
Hair Day Rating (1=worst, 10=best): I was essentially wet for two solid days, so let's not even talk about it.