Alaska 2019

We got up at 2:00 am and finished packing and then loaded the truck with 6 bags of luggage (2 bags each for Karen, Lynn and Patsy).  We headed to FlyAway at 3:15 am.  We were at Fly Away by 3:45 where we met up with Paul and Sandra.  We were at the airport by 3:55 am.  We quickly checked in with the great Delta agent, Peyton Hosman (Paul's niece), and headed to security Precheck. There were  only a few people in line and we zipped through security by 4:05 am (except Karen who got the full experience of pat down, x-ray and purse/backpack-emptying).  It was because she had ample snacks plus she has purchased a whale necklace for Sandra and Patsy and wrapped in sandwich bags with flowers glued on.  After a while the TSA agent let her go.  We got fast some food breakfast and waited for boarding time.  The 5 hour flight departed for Seattle at 6:15 am and arrived at 8:30 am.  We had breakfast (again) at the Seattle Taproom and killed a lot of time (3 hour layover).  We left Seattle at 11:45 am and arrived in Anchorage at 2:30 pm.  We met up with the agent from Princess Cruise Line, retrieved our bags and took the bus over to the Hotel Capt Hook.  We had an early dinner at Fletchers, one of the hotel's restaurants.  The halibut was excellent.  Given we had been up since 2:00 am and the 3 hour time change we were ready for bed by 6:00 pm, but sunset in Alaska in at 11:00 pm.

We were up early (3:00 am) because of the time change but catnapped for a couple of hours to get sleep pattern back on track.  It is 41 degrees this morning with a high of 57 forecasted so looks like no shorts today.  We went down at 8:00 am to the hotel's The Cafe for breakfast.  There was a long line so while some waited Paul and I scurried 2 blocks to see how long line was at Snow Flake Cafe.  It was a 40 minute wait so we scurried back.  We were not disappointed.  Ample chicken/waffles, halibut omelets, Alaskan breakfast with reindeer sausage, sourdough pancakes and English muffins satisfied the appetites.  After breakfast we headed to a few souvenir shops and made our way to the Visitors Center to catch a trolley tour of Anchorage.  We learned history of the city of Anchorage, the Alaskan railway and learned a lot about the 1964 Earthquake.  The earthquake changed the landscape in Anchorage where the North American plate and the Pacific plate touch.  The tour bus driver took us to Earthquake Park where he got out of bus and ran down into a ravine caused by the earthquake.  Driving on we drove through the largest seaport (Lake Hood Seaport) made up mostly of seaplanes.  There are about 50-100 takeoffs each day.  After the tour we walked down to the Earthquake Experience and watched a movie and looked at some of the old photos from 1964.  We did run into a lady who was downtown Anchorage when the earthquake occurred and she showed us where she was in one of the pictures - really made it more interesting.  We headed to lunch at Simon and Seafort's based on a recommendation from the earthquake lady.  It was located on Cook's Inlet and a great view of the Sleeping Lady mountain.  If you look at the photo the left side is the lady's head and the right side is the lady's body.  the slope of the mountain on the left is the lady's hair.  The food was excellent and our waitress, Briana, was from L.A. and had been in Alaska for the past 10 years.  She loves to hike, camp, fish and hunt moose.  She even told us how they dress a moose after the kill.  I'll let it go at that.  After lunch (2:30 pm) we headed back to hotel.  Paul and I decided to go back to the trail around Cook's inlet to see if there any good bird pics.  No bird pics but did get a couple of good pics of the Alaskan train with cars from Holland and Princess cruise lines headed to the airport.  Because of the late lunch we skipped dinner.  Paul and Sandra did go to the Whale's Tail lounge and listen to the Nuther Brothers play some honky tonk.  Paul sang real good at the bar so they gave him a CD.

We were up at 4’ish this morning to pack 2 bags to be ready for 6:00 am pickup - 1 to go to Denali and 1 to go into storage to meet us on the ship in 3 days.  I’m glad they don’t weigh my 56 lb bag to Denali.  The weather is partly cloudy and warmer this morning at 46 degrees. I’m not sure what Alaska looks like in the dark since it is light 17 hours a day. We went down for breakfast at 6:00 am (same place as yesterday - The Cafe).  The food and service were excellent until we wanted to pay the bill.  Waitress brought the checks, we placed our credit cards in the book, but waitress never came back.  Sandra went back upstairs and Patsy suggested we take our bill to front counter and pay directly.  That worked until waitress realized she had forgotten and came and got Paul and Karen's check.  I had already paid at front counter.  Then the waitress did not come back again so Paul and Karen went to front desk and paid.  Whew!  We went back upstairs - luggage had been picked up.  We met downstairs for the bus at 7:35 am.  At 8:00 am we boarded the bus and pulled out for the 5 hour drive to Denali at 8:08 am.  At 9:01 we passed through Wasilla which has grown greatly since Sarah Palin ran for VP of the US.  She calls Wasilla her home.  Side note:  Did you know Alaska has 10-20 earthquakes every day because it sits on the North American fault line.  Most of the earthquakes are so small no one feels them but they are documented at the Alaska Earthquake Center.  After driving past Talkeetna we pulled over at the Veterans Memorial and took our first photos of the Denali Peak and ate our box lunch.  Before we passed the Continental Divide all the rivers flowed south down to Cook's inlet.  After passing the divide all the rivers flowed northward, emptying into the Yukon River.  We drove on the last 100 miles making one more stop at a clearing where a photo op allowed us take pictures of the Alaskan Range and Denali.  We made our last stop about 5 miles from the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge and picked up our room keys for the next 2 days and our Tundra excursion tickets for Monday.  We disembarked at the lodge and found our rooms.  Our luggage made it to the room about 4 hours later.  While waiting for luggage we ordered our box lunches for the tundra and then grabbed a shuttle over to the Denali National Park Visitors Center.   I got my National Park Passport stamp and headed back to the lodge.  We did see a moose leaving the National Park and was able to off a quick shot.  We had dinner at Lynx Creek Pizza and then headed back to the room to receive our luggage.  We were pretty tired and called it a night.

We woke to a beautiful morning with a temperature of 36 degrees but a forcasted high near 60 degrees.  We picked up our box lunches at 6:15 am from River Run Expresso, grabbed a quick bite and headed 53 miles into Denali on the Denali Tundra Wilderness Tour at 7:00 am.  By 7:10 am the bus was loaded and headed to Denali.  Our driver was Matt and proved to be very knowledgeable throughout the day.  The first animal we spotted was the Snowshoe Hare which is brown in summer and white in the winter. At 7:35 we spotted the first of many caribou we would see today.  Did you know that a reindeer in Alaska is just a domesticated caribou?  As we approached the ranger station we spotted two mew gulls.  The station is as far as a personal vehicle can drive into Denali and is the place where the paved road turns to gravel.  We did not go far until we spotted the Willow ptarmigan, Alaska's state bird.  He did not seem to care if we took his photo.  Around 8:01 am we crossed the Savage River.  Later Matt stated he saw a Spruce Grouse but he ran under some black spruces before we saw him.  Just after crossing the Teklanika River at MM 29 we took a rest stop and spotted a mother grizzly with 2 cubs.  They were pretty far away but the driver was able to spot them again a mile up the road.  Throughout the day we saw many arctic ground squirrels, and some magpies.  We did see dall sheep who gave us a great opportunity to photograph them as they just walked out onto the road.  We also spotted a moose crossing over a river on top of the snow.  He walked pretty fast and only got one picture.  Once we crossed the Toklat River at MM 53, we took a bathroom break and turned around and headed back to the lodge.  We ate our box lunch on the way back and watched for any new animals.  We did see more dall sheep, more caribou but the best photos of the day was a grizzly bear as we approached the bridge at the ranger station.  Matt was able to stop the bus on the side of hill just above the bear and we watched him chow down on roots for about 10 minutes.  We arrived back to Denali Lodge at 2:15 pm.  We met at 5:00 pm for a quick photo overlooking the Nanana River at the back of the lodge.  We went to Fannie Q's Saloon for dinner.  We chose to eat outside where it was quite cool even with the furnished blankets and overhead heaters.  Paul refused a blanket (shocker) but I chose to use mine as you can see in the pictures.

We woke up early to a balmy 36 degrees this morning.  We were ready to go by 6:00 am so we went down and grabbed coffee and a cinnamon roll  where we ran into Paul getting some early joe.  Note: I have noticed the fairy seamstress comes through my room while I am asleep at night and takes my pants up in the waist.   I will have to hide from her when I get onboard the ship.  We put our luggage out before 7:00 am for pickup by Princess to go to McKinley Lodge in Talkeetna. I took a few pictures of the Denali property and have included them.  We boarded the bus at 9:45 am and drove about an hour before we took a break and took a few pictures of the Denali peak. It was a clear day but since Denali has its own weather system clouds hovered around the top all day. We arrived at McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge around noon. Since we had already been given our packets with the next day's luggage tags and room keys we went to lunch at the 20,320 Alaskan Grill. I guess you already know 20,320 is the height in feet of Mt McKinley (Denali). After luch we headed to our rooms in building 17. Karen's room was the only one that had been cleaned so we dropped our backpacks and headed back to the main lodge. We took a few tourist pictures under the McKinley Wilderness Lodge sign with Mt. McKinley in the background. It was covered with clouds at the top but we looked good. The main lodge had a great deck that looked out directly towards Mt. McKinley. After finishing our viewing we went back to our rooms around 2:00 pm but they were still not ready. Paul, Sandra and I took a short walk along a trail that overlooked some river. Rooms were still not ready but our luggage began to arrive from Denali around 4:00 pm. Patsy and Lynn's room was ready around 4:30 but Sandra and Paul's room was not ready until 5:15 pm. We went to dinner at 5:30 pm and had dinner at the Base Camp Bar since the North Fork Restaurant was booked until 8:30 pm. During dinner we discussed visiting the town of Talkeetna, an hour away, on Wednesday. Talkeetna is the town where we will board the Alaskan train for the 5 hour trip to Whittier to board the Coral Princess. Since we did not know how far it was from the town of Talkeetna to the rail station (some said one mile, some said 5 miles) , we decided not to go to Talkeetna but just hang around around the lodge on Wednesday until time to go to rail station. I think we are all ready for some down time on the ship. Since we do not have internet in our rooms I uploaded this blog from the main lodge so excuse any mistakes.

We packed and set our luggage out at 6:30 am for pickup by Princess to carry to the ship. Since we decided not to go to Talkeetna, we had a morning to ourselves. We had breakfast at 20,320 Alaskan Grill and went back to our rooms. We headed to the main lodge around 10:45 am to catch the bus to Talkeetna train station at 11:30 am. Buses came and we loaded based on our train car number (Car 4). There must have been 8 buses that carried us all to the Talkeetna train station, which is just a gravel road beside the tracks, one portable potty and a dumpster. The train was late. Story is a locomotive broke down on the tracks so our train connected to it and pulled it to a side track. We left Talkeetna about 45 minutes late for the 5 hour ride to Whittier. Karen, Paul and Sandra shared a table and we shared a table with Hope and Steve who were from Strausburg, VA. He once made his living growing apples near Winchester, VA. Our hostess was Esther, a retired school principle. She had been in Alaska about 50 years and made the trip enjoyable. I was going to catch up on my blogging but Steve and Hope kept us talking instead. We got close to Whittier and had to wait a few minutes before entering a tunnel that is one-way for cars and trains (we missed the 6:30 pm southbound tunnel opening). We arrived at the dock in Whittier around 7:00 pm and then crossed the street in a freezing wind. Since Princess had sent people on board our train to hand out our boading passes and keys, we only needed to go through security/x-rays. We dropped our stuff in our rooms and went for dinner around 8:30 pm. We got back to our rooms and unpacked by 10:30 pm. It was time to call it a night.

• Outline
• • 10:00 am North to Alaska - Overview of Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan
  • 1:15 pm Enrichment Lecture: Alaska Night - slept through most of it
  • 5:30 - 7:00 pm Hubbard Glacier - North America's largest tidewater glacier in Yakutat Bay surrounded by the Wrangle St Elias Mountain Range
  • Formal night

• Outline
• • Enter the waters of Alaska's Inside Passage go past Icy Straits and go to Glacier Bay
  • Sailed past Glacier N. P. in Gustavas, AK. Boat met us with Park Rangers.
  • Park Ranger talk at 10:00 am
  • Reach 2 glaciers - Marjorie Glacier and Grand Pacific Glacier
  • On the way south through Glacier Bay, sailed into inlet to see Johns Hopkins Glacier
  • 1000s of glaciers in Glacier Bay N. P. but only the Johns Hopkins is actively moving
  • It takes 400 years for a snowflake to be compacted and move 50-60 miles down to the bay and begin calving

• Skagway
  • Moved up Lynn Canal and Taiya Inlet to Skagway, the most norther point of Alaska's Inside Passage
  • 6:00 am Breakfast
  • 7:00 am Disembark
  • 8:00 am Boarded Haines-Skagway Fast Ferry (HSFF) for 20 miles trip down Lynn Canal to Haines
  • 8:45 am Met with drivers to take us to 4-wheeler driving; 45 minute drive to trail location
  • 1:00 Returned to catch HSFF back to Skagway
  • 2:00 Back on ship
  • 5:30 pm Dinner at Bayou Cafe
  • 8:00 pm Production Show: On the Bayou
  • 8:00 pm Left Skagway

• Juneau
• • Sailed south through the Upper Lynn Canal, around Douglas Island and north via Gastineau Channel into Juneau
  • Had breakfast at 6:00 am and disembarked at 7:00 am to find our excursion 610 (Whale Watching and Wildlife Quest)
  • We found our bus and driver (Shelby) and headed out to Auke Bay and met up with Allen Marine
  • We saw our first whales – a mom weighing in at 60,000 lbs and her calf of 20,000 lbs which the crew estimated the calf to be 6 months old. She was born 6,000 miles away in the warm waters of Hawaii
  • We watched them for 30-45 minutes and then moved on to find others. We stopped near a sea buoy where a golden eagle was perched on top with 4 sea lions sitting on the bottom. There were about a dozen other sea lions in the water grunting and diving and complaining they were not on the buoy.
  • We found another pair of whales (mom and calf) and watched them surface and dive for a while before heading back to the dock
  • We boarded the bus and Shelby dropped us off downtown Juneau where we had lunch at the Red Dog Saloon. After lunch we did some shopping in Juneau before heading back to the ship.
  • The ship left port around 4:00 pm and made its way down the Lynn Canal toward Ketchikan

• Ketchikan
  • Warmer weather
  • Breakfast at 8:30, Docked at 9:00 am, disembarked at 10:30 am
  • Excursion Lighthouse Totems and Eagles at 1:45 pm
  • Returned to ship 4:45 pm

• At sea

• Disembark 8:30 am