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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) frankltd | |
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Day 12 Fairbanks to Denali
Jordan keeps telling me, "Blog it out, blog it out!" Friday, July 4th was a long day. It started at 5:30 with a wake-up call from the front desk. It was another travel day and the bags had to be outside the room by 6:00AM. It's hard to have your bags outside before you are ready to sart your day! Maybe there's some trick to leaving your bag outside and carrying on your sleeping clothes and toiletries but we haven't figured it out yet. We boarded our bus bound for our train to Denali at 7:00. On board the train you are assigned a specific seat at a specific table in a domed car. Once everyone has been seated the car host, bartender, and restaurant manager introduce themselves and tell you how things will work. It's all very similar to what happens in an elementary classroom on the first day of school. VERY REGIMENTED but not very organized. Fred even tried to help by delivering drinks to one of the tables and in the process pissed off the bartender. Priscilla later remarked that all the herding and instructions reminded her of a concentration camp. Of course the train ride was supposed to be 4 and a half hours and ended up taking 5 and a half. This was partial because we had to wait on a siding to let a freight train pass. I guess the freight train makes more money for the Alaskan Railroad!
Anyway because of the delay we only had about 30 minutes to put our carry-ons in our rooms, get lunch and get on our 6-8 hour bus tour of Denali. Before I go any further, let me just say that on this trip we have learned the difference between a motor coach, a shuttle, a bus, and a trolley. A motor coach is a bus with a restroom, padded seats, and a DVD system. A shuttle is a bus with padded seats. A bus has seats. A trolley is a golf cart! Our 6-8 hour tour was in a bus. More specifically our our was in a bus made by Thomas. Those of you in the education business would call it a school bus. Our tour guide spoke like Lynne Rossetto Kasper (http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/) and although she was very good, after a 5 and a half hour train ride we were not really in the mood for an 8 hour bus ride. We did however see 3 bears, several moose, numerous caribou (you know they're really reindeer), a fox, some Dall sheep, and 59 showshoe hares. Andy really got into it but for me it solidified my belief that I should stick to teaching physical and not life science. The other interesting part of the trip was the family from Jersey (Joy-say) that was sitting behind us and couldn't seem to recognize the difference between a snowshoe hare and a caribou (you know they're really reindeer)!
The tour ended and we ate at the Bistro with good food and sometimes snarly service (they had us wait 20 minutes for a table that set clean and vacant for the whole time). We ended the evening around midnight in the hot tub complaining about the bad service (there were NO towels at the hot tub) and lamenting that we should have allowed a full day each for the train ride AND the tour!
Day 13 Denali
Today has overall been a better day! Yeah, we still have a terrible room (think Red Roof Inn), a lot of the service is still snarly, but we did get to sleep late. By late I mean 8:30 when a phone call from Fred alerted us that Andy needed to meet them at the lodge at 9:40 to go rafting. Cel and I took the shuttle along with Tracy, Paul, Priscilla and Jack (that's Captain Jack). We went to the Horseshoe Lake Trail which Tracy had been told was a flat easy trail down to a lake. Well if that's a flat trail get me to Kansas fast! It turns out that the trail was rated moderate to severe and dropped over 200 feet over about 20 feet. OK, that's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much! The main problem is that this was not a loop trail so we all realized that we would be hiking back UP this same trail we were going down. I wimped out on Tracy and Paul about half the way down but I did make it further than Priscilla and Cel who had "volunteered" to watch Jack at an overlook. We did hike the 0.6 mile to the visitor center. After taking the shuttle back we visited several of the "discount" gift shops across the road from the lodge. Each offering a variety of items no tourist should be without including the more unusual items involving "moose droppings".
Tomorrow we once again take the train to another Princess lodge. This time we get to sleep to a decent hour and now that we know "the drill" we have nothing planned after our arrival. Alaska is a wonderful place, I just think we may not be cut out for organized tours! Current Mood:  peaceful
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