It's official train day!! Up at 5am to get loaded up and head off to the train! The best part about waking up so early was that one of the guests made fresh from scratch southern biscuits. Biscuits, coffee and puppies were a great start to the morning. Once at the train station it was time to see if we could all 4 panniers into our new luggage..... success!! Great purchase on our part.
A nice 4 hour train ride down to Denali. Trains are so nice and spacious, better than bikes or a plane (i think my uncle Jim is on to something with this transportation;) ). They are so relaxing, you can walk around, sleep, stare out a window or at people, do nothing, play games.... the activities are endless! The Alaskan trains have a dome in one of the cars which will give you a 360* view from above, which was amazing to see!
The skies were big, blue and clear, which means we are part of the 30% club to actually see Denali!! And that beaut is HUGE and gorgeous!! Our next trip to Alaska is to summit Denali ;) !!!! When we officially arrive to Denali National Park it is back on the bikes to the campground. We get a site and head on over... pulling up to our site i spot about 40' away a mama and baby moose!! Those creatures are huge!! I am a happy camper now, i saw a moose... but now it's not good enough because i want to see papa moose and his rack. We watch the moose just eating the branches along their walk for a little bit. Once they move on we set up camp and then to the visitor center to try to get a bus ride in the park tomorrow.... success.
We head down to "town" right outside the park, glitter gulch as they call it. It consists of all tourist shops and a subway. We did get a cool painting of a moose from a local though. Once you see one tourist shop you have seen them all so not much time was spent in town.
Heading our way back to the camp site we saw a baby moose along the bike path and then walk up and over the path about 10' away. That was sweet but wondered at the same time where mama was.... don't want to get charged by mama, especially if she comes out of no where. After a nice one way conversation with baby it's back to the tent only to see the first mama and baby moose again walking along the road. Gosh they are HUGE and i am in total heaven!! While standing there watching them two other people walk down the road between mama and baby, i thought we were going to witness a moose take out a human.... luckily we didn't but mom was not happy about those two people.
Back to the tent to relax, a big day full of animals already, can't wait to see what we see tomorrow!! I got to finish my book, Forget-Me-Not, about the climber Alex Lowe who died in an avalanche. Good book and makes me want to be a climber... i think i need to find motivation to be active first :)
Comments