Smiles from Denali, Alaska

It has been over a month since we returned from our Alaskan land/sea adventure so I guess it is high time that I continue my cruise blogging that got interrupted by Father’s Day and the 4th of July.

Come with me to beautiful Denali.

Monday morning we left Mt. McKinley Wilderness Lodge and

Traveled about an hour to the little town of Talkeetna where we

boarded the Princess train that took us to Denali. It was about a 41/2 hour train ride and we enjoyed every minute. We ate in the dining car,

visited with our friends and loved looking at the beautiful scenery from our dome car.

We arrived at Denali about 5:00p.m. This is ”down town” Denali.

Our Princess Lodge was across the street from “down town.”

It was a beautiful place.

We were comfortable there and would recommend it to you.

We especially enjoyed eating out on the patio by the river.

 

The next morning we boarded our school tour bus for a 9 hour drive into Denali National Park. (School buses are the only buses allowed into the park but luckily they are upgraded and have comfortable seats.)

Going into Denali is unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. The park is huge. One of our lst treats there was getting to see Mt. McKinley from the north side. This is even more rare than it was seeing it from the south side. We were told she hides in the clouds 90 percent of the time…. so we joined the 10 percent club of people who get to see her from Denali.  We were so lucky.

The scenery is breathtaking. My pictures do not do it justice.

I was glad that our school bus driver seemed to know what he was doing as he drove us around the sharp curves on the narrow dirt road that took us into the park.

It is hard to tell but those are hundreds of little rivers and streams that are thawing from the ice.

The higher we drove the fewer trees we saw. It is called the tundra and trees, even the hardy spruce we saw at the lower levels, can not grow there. It is too cold. The winter temperatures are between 40 and 60 degrees below zero and it stays dark 20 hours a day.  While we were there it was light 20 hours a day.

We saw lots of wild life that day. We saw moose, caribou, white Dahl sheep, 1 bear, birds and various other smaller critters. Unfortunately, my camera was not good enough to get good pictures to show you…. but it was exciting.

Can you see the moose in these pictures?

I know you can’t tell it but there is a bear on the other side of the river in this picture.

This bird is the Willow Ptarmigan  . It is the state bird of Alaska. The amazing thing about this bird is it does not migrate. For camouflage it’s feathers are all white in the winter and it is all brown in the summer. This one is changing from white to brown.

We are so glad that we got to spend 2 days in Denali. It really is an amazing place. We are so glad that we got to go there and see more of God’s wonders.

I hope that you have enjoyed this little trip with us through Denali, Alaska. If you go to Denali, be sure to take the 9 hour, 53 mile, tour into the park instead of the 3 hour tour. The 3 hour tour only goes 15 miles into the park and you don’t see nearly as much as we did on our longer tour.

Next I will take you to Whittier where we will board the Coral Princess and head for Glacier Bay. I hope you will join me.

I hope that you are doing well. I got to read most of your blogs from bloglovin. I’m trying to get use to it but I miss Google reader.

Have a great week.  Hugs, Grammy Lura