Day 05 - 07/02/22 - Denali to Anchorage by McKinley Explorer

 To state that today was a fabulous transition day would be an understatement.  We boarded the shuttle to the train station at 8:30am with our luggage still waiting outside our room.  Would it make it to Anchorage?

 

We were assigned seats 19a,b,&c in the first car (Kenai) after the single diesel engine.  Three other cars were behind us. Because a man was scheduled to be sitting in seat d, Noah, the onboard tour guide moved us to row 21 & 22 where we could spread out. But the man never showed up.  The skies were blue and the train left around 9am.

 

We were treated to scenic views the entire time!  Denali peeked out various times throughout the trip, and we counted seven moose sightings.  Noah played various games with us for prizes and provided commentary as well.  Isaiah was our bartender and he kept us in liquids.

 

At one point we were held up for the Star train heading north on a direct run to Fairbanks. Then we were held up for two more northbound trains.  All totaled, we sat in the same location for two hours.  There simply aren't many places for the trains to pass each other.

 

We passed on having breakfast as we enjoyed our granola bars and other snacks that Angela packed.  Angela and I did have a very late lunch of a seafood sandwich and salmon chowder.  Both were scrumptious.  Katie didn't want any thing, but later had a blueberry/yoghurt parfait.

 

Katie's camera had gotten wet the day before and was malfunctioning.  Noah gave us a tip of covering if with a microfiber towel and putting it in the sun.  I added a black KN95 mask to help absorb the sun's heat.  About 4 hours later, the camera came back to life.  I gave her a lanyard to fasten to it so she could wear it around her neck.

 

Because of our delay, we arrived into Anchorage at 7:10pm which was about two hours late.  They didn't have itinerary packets for us and another family we've gotten to know, but they put us on a bus and sent us to the Captain Cook hotel for our brief one night's stay.  Upon arrival there, our packet was waiting for us.  We went up to our room and wahla, our luggage was there!

 

The girls went swimming while I caught up in administrative tasks.  Soon they were back because the pool closed at 8:30pm. We enjoyed some snack bars and prepared our luggage for an 8am pickup tomorrow.  Katie was still a big hyper but was good at preparing her things for tomorrow's transition to the ship. Although it's totally daylight, we closed the drapes to block most of the light, and all of us were in bed by 10pm.

 

Katie's favorite thing of the day was seeing the moose.  For me it was the very clear views of Denali followed by seeing fields of ferns.  Angela's favorite was Noah, our tour guide.

 

The land portion of our trip has simply been spectacular.  Katie has been totally engaged with it and it's fun as a grandparent seeing that enthusiasm. We await seeing how she'll respond to cruising.