Day Four - Embarkation!

We were too tired to brave the three-hour round trip it would take to spend time in charming Talkeetna when we arrived yesterday and had to be at the lodge for our ride back to our train by 11:30 this morning, takealongs packed and ready in the hallway by 7am for the last time until next week. Bummer.

Talkeetna station is too small (i.e. almost non-existent) to cope with the Princess Tour ship traffic, so they actually set up a separate area especially for the Princess coaches. It is literally in the middle of nowhere, with two port-a-potties and a gravel parking area next to a random part of the main train tracks. Too funny.

Our train to Whittier is one owned by Alaska Rail and leased to Princess Cruises, and it’s different from yesterday’s train. These cars have only one level, windows up the sides and curved almost all the way to the top of the roof, with tables and seats more like diner booths and open space under the banquettes for our carry-ons. We were at the end, again, but this time there was only good news. It was a four-seat grouping and no one was in the booth across from us, so the couple we were initially sitting with, Susan and Jim, moved over and we each had an entire booth to spread out in. No smoking is allowed even on the platforms between the cars this time, so there won’t be any residuals wafting through each time the doors open. We were told by Nicole that this trip passes a lot of wildlife, such as moose, caribou, bald eagles, bears and tundra swans. As I type this (1:52pm Alaska time), we are zooming through the forest at a great clip, so they must all be on vacation, too. It looks like we may be outrunning the overcast. Or maybe it’s just my bleary eyes. I never would have thought that so much sitting could be so exhausting. This was the best of the transports, though, because it was roomier and we kept popping up to take pictures. Everywhere we turn is a sight to remember. It’s crazy.

We arrived at the ship, the Island Princess, around 7pm and wandered around, trying to find our cabin. Then we enjoyed a quick buffet dinner and the fantastically entertaining (not!) muster session was upon us. A necessary evil, I know, but I wish someone would tell these people that those lame jokes sound as embarrassing to us as they do to those telling them. And somehow those lifejackets never get any more attractive or less cumbersome. Ran into Paulette who lost Judy in the muster session, and the couple I sat with at the Aurora Symphony, whoever they may be. Had some giggles.

It’s 10pm and we’re just hanging out in the adorable cabin on Aloha Deck 12, practically next to the bridge (and, happily for Karen, right below the buffet). We have a little balcony with a sliding glass door and I keep running out there to take the most amazing pictures. I may never do anything else the whole time! The weather is still overcast and it’s looked to be about 5pm EDT for most of the day. It still does. It seems there may not be ship-wide wifi except in port, either. I will have to make do with that, as the access provided in the meantime is sporadic and satellite-driven at $.40 per minute, but only if you purchase 250 minutes at a time! We are staying on the ship for the next two days and getting off in Skaguay on Thursday for tours and such. It feels so good to finally unpack and not be living out of my tote. And no getting up just to pack my pjs and park my bag outside at 7am - yea!

Where are we?

Day Three: Denali/Talkeetna

We had to be up, packed and out the door by 6am to get on the waiting tour bus. Most of us are still jet lagged, so it's quite the experience. This vacation thing is stressful! Denali National Park is big and...big. We drove around a lot looking for wildlife and seeing just a mama moose and her baby while still at the first stop. Saw one Dall sheep through someone's telescope, some snowshoe hares a little too close up (I didn't have to use the zoom to take the picture - no fear), a single harlequin duck and a gray jay (a blue jay, except not). Went to the interpretive section of the park and saw a model home that the railroad people would have stayed in. The mosquito is apparently the unofficial state bird of Alaska. They should stock repellent with their courtesy shampoos. Maybe instead of them. Seriously. Then on to the Visitor's Center in a place that begins with a P (Primrose?) to meet up with a Native Alaskan, another Athabascan Indian named Lindy Alexander (Dixie's cousin). He told us what it was like growing up in the bush off the land. Showed us some snowshoes and Native clothing, joked around. I asked if it was fun for him. He said sometimes, but it was getting old. I can't even imagine.

The permafrost has an interesting effect on the trees. It was hard to photograph from the bumpy school bus, but certain sections are referred to as the “drunken forest” because the trees literally lean in different directions due to their struggle for survival. The bus tour took about 4 hours including stops and then we had to wait another hour and a half at the train station where the weather finally started to cool down, in order to take another 4 hour trip to the hotel 40 miles from Mt. McKinley. It's more of a layover than anything else, since we have to leave again for Anchorage/Whittier by noon.

The double-decker train to the next hotel had a dining room downstairs in each car and nice plush seats up, mostly set up the same as the dining car with little tables planted between facing seats. We ate with Paulette and Judy, who are sisters and funny. We were at a tiny table at the end, with all the room we could want to stash our stuff. That was the good news. The bad news was that we were at a tiny table at the end, where we were overlooked for much of the trip. We were so tired it didn’t matter much. One interesting thing Penny, the tour guide, pointed out was the “Hundred Year Meadow”. Beavers are very active in this area and when they build a lodge, silt eventually fills in behind it and they have to build another one. This process repeats itself year after year and the clearing we passed took about a hundred years to reach a point where there was no river left for the beavers to dam up. She also told a may-or-may-not-be-true story about little Cantwell. It’s remote, as are many towns in the interior, and there aren’t many televisions around, so the locals would gather at the bar. One night, they were watching America’s Most Wanted and whispered to each other that the bartender looked a lot like the man they were profiling on the show. They contacted the FBI and a team was sent to check out the situation. Sure enough, the bartender was one of the ten most wanted. They met with the mayor and while he was out of the room, they conferred with each other and decided that the mayor looked familiar, too. Sure enough, the mayor was also one of the ten most wanted. Ever since, they’ve said you can’t hide well in Cantwell. They told us "funny" jokes ("Do Juneau the capitol of Alaska?") and that the town the tv show Northern Exposure was modeled after, Talkeetna, was where the train stopped so that we could be driven yet ANOTHER hour to the Mt. McKinley Princess Lodge in Denali State Park. I don't know what the difference is between the state and national parks but it was exhausting. The coach driver, like the others, talked pretty much non-stop. He showed us where the electric support stopped and total self-sustenance began, and said the hotel was completely self-sustaining. The Mt. McKinley Lodge was very nice, with a neat trick to help the guests remember exactly how high Denali is - the main restaurant is called the "Twenty three twenty" - 20,320 feet. Even forty miles away and half obscured, it was an impressive sight. Met a really fun young man at the front desk of the hotel. We chatted silliness and hot sauce for 40 minutes after I asked what I needed to ask. Then he thought I should see the Aurora Symphony show featuring photography by Leroy Zimmerman(?), which was so amazing that it looked more like Industrial Light and Magic than reality. We couldn't find Karen, who was busy being tired and wondering why I was hanging out at the desk for so long, so she missed out on her free ticket. Signed up for a "wake-up" call in case Mt. McKinley/Denali came out to play while I was asleep and took a picture of half of it in case that was all we were going to see - which, as it turned out, it was. Right now, it's 11:15 Alaska time and it looks like maybe 7pm. They tell me the sun grazes the mountains sometime after midnight and then just arcs back up again. At this rate, I'll be able to see for myself!

The day has finally arrived!

Day one: June 20, 2008

Karen is taking me along with her on a fabulous trip to Alaska. I've tried not to think about it for months because I'd never be able to think of anything else but this is it. It's finally here. Slept some – so excited! Made my granola last night for the long, provisionless plane trip. I was so tired that I couldn’t remember what I’d packed, so I unpacked twice before setting out. Argh!

Got to the airport on time but didn’t have my luggage properly balanced for walking through the corridors. Finally figured it out after we got to the airport in Seattle.

The trip out was beautiful – clear weather, interesting terrain below. This pic looks like clouds, I know, but it's actually the Rocky Mountains. (Click on it to see it full size.) I was assigned an aisle seat but there was no one else in my row, so I sat staring out the window and taking pictures for most of the 5 hours and 20-some minutes, occasionally glancing at the two movies they showed on the little screens hanging from the overhead sections. The first one was Definitely Maybe - I think. I don’t know what the second one was. Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey and buried treasure. Was parched and the fabulous Farook kept me supplied with water. He said I’d had one and a half of those large (two liter?) bottles by the end of the flight and I sloshed my way onto the gangway.

Seattle/Tacoma (Sea-Tac) Airport sits in the shadow of Mount Rainier. Just beautiful. And the whole area is very green. The airport is small and the old section has wooden floors. They have bronzish fish inlaid into the other floors. Very cute.

The flight was punctuated by musical outbursts from a May Palmer, an outspoken former Rhode Islander who was going to sing for the troops in Fairbanks. She and Karen talked the entire three hours. I tried to sleep.

The hotel was about five minutes from the airport. Serviceable, with wireless access in all of the rooms. Had dinner under the scariest chandelier ever. We're in Alaska!! I can't believe it.



I took pictures out of our sunny hotel window at 9:30pm, 3:30am and 7:50am Alaska time. The Weather Channel said sunset was around 12:30am and sunrise around 2:50. I have to check that tomorrow.

Our take-along bags that we didn’t want to lug had to be outside our room for pickup by 7am to be brought to the next stop, so we had to be pretty much ready to go by then. Not exactly relaxing.

Day Two: June 21, 2008 – Fairbanks

Took Karen’s advice and stayed up as late as I could to get acclimated to local time. Unfortunately, she didn’t take it and woke me up at 4:45am after I’d fallen asleep around 10pm. At least we were up in plenty of time to be packed for our 7am baggage pick up. We left for our Discovery Riverboat tour along the Chena River at 8am and it was slow and entertaining and lovely on a sunny, 82-degree day. (Who knew I'd get sunburned in Alaska?) Fairbanks has the broadest temperature range in practically the entire state - down to 60 below zero in winter and well into the 90's in summer. We saw scenery, sled dogs, fish skinning, costume making and old hunting structures. Susan Butcher, the famous three-year consecutive Iditarod winner, lived here. Her husband, Bill Munson, and daughter, Jessie, showed us the dogs and talked about raising, training and living with them. When there's no snow, they run the dogs around a mile-long dirt track pulling Bill on a quad with the engine removed to take the place of a sled. I took a cute portrait of Cobra, who was very excited to see us. We also saw Dixie Alexander, who skinned a salmon with warp speed and does the most amazing skin and beadwork. Her costumes are on display nationally, including at the Smithsonian. She said it takes 6 to 7 months to complete one, not counting the tanning. She was amazing. Our guides were two Alaska University students, Rebecca and Ida. Rebecca is an Athabascan Indian (that's her posing in the handmade parka with the sunburst hood) and Ida is a Yupik Eskimo. I wanted to take a picture of them together but Rebecca was off somewhere, so I got Ida and Liz, instead. Liz is also an Athabascan Indian, from a town of 100 people about 500 miles away. The temperature continued to rise and by the time we got off the boat, it was well over 80 degrees. Just like home. I couldn't believe it. This is the summer soltice, the longest day of the year. It's a very big deal in a place where the sun doesn't shine at all for months at a time. There was a street fair in Fairbanks proper and there were various celebrations planned under the midnight sun, which, of course, we would have to miss. We had another three hours on a coach to Denali National Park (on which the driver talked non-stop about the history, government, schools, his family, etc.), where we're staying at the largest hotel in the entire state of Alaska – the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. Nine hundred rooms in several buildings scattered over a complex shaped like a hilly figure eight right next to the Chulitna River. The scenery is fantastic – almost impossible to believe. I may replace yesterday's sunshine pics because it's so much more amazing here. Poor Fairbanks.