North to Denali

May 14, 2010
This morning a coach bus took 41 of us to the Alaska Rail yard to board the McKinley Explorer to Denali National Park.


The train car has a glass domed roof, and fine dining on the lower level. Our tour director gave each of us a name tag when we got on the train; our job was to find whoever had our tag and get to know them. The train ride is about 7 hours long which sounds rough, but we had a guide who gave us bits of information about the areas we were passing through, and about Alaska in general.






We also got to know some of our travel mates, and enjoyed some food in the dining car. At breakfast, we dined with Bob and Sue (who we found out later prefers to be called Carol) Panosh from Missouri. Bob and Don hit it off right away; they both think about food all the time. Throughout the trip, the two of them made sure the other knew where the best food buy was. The food was tasty, but not very hot. Jordan Mower, the driver of our coach, recommended the "fruits of the forest" pie, and since that's supposed to be served cold, we ordered it. It was delicious. We learned throughout the trip to believe everything Jordan told us!!

We kept a look out for Mt. McKinley which is sometimes visible, but we didn't get to see it. We arrived at Denali National park in the late afternoon, and took a coach bus to McKinley Chalet Resort.



Holland America (HAL) had already checked us into our room, and delivered our luggage. Super convenient for us. We took a walk about the village - it felt really good to walk a bit. The weather was in the 50's with a strong wind which made it a little cool. We had tickets for Cabin Nite at the resort. The food - all you can eat which made Don and Bob very happy - was fabulous. Nice fresh salad, ribs, salmon, bean, corn, potatoes, biscuits and blackberry cobbler. The salmon was to die for.





The servers also put on a historical musical about the early gold rush settlers of the region. They choose a couple of guests from the audience to participate in their play, and of course, Don was one of them chosen. They must have seen his resume with that big part he played in the 4-H play many years ago. I wasn't able to get any pictures because he was blocked from my view during his performance. But he did an oscar-worthy job!



Back to our cabin about 9:30 (and yes, it's still light out) but time to hit the hay for a 7:00 am tour tomorrow.