Denali is playing hard to get (or to see).

We left Anchorage earli-ish (8am, which was not that early for us.

We had been up since 4am because of the time difference....).The sun, which is only down for about 4 hours at night was barely rising....

The bus from Anchorage to  Talkeetna (where we boarded the train) took us through Wassila, forcing many jokes about being able to see Russia from there (or , as the case may be, not...).  We did pass Sara Palin's driveway and tried not to shudder......

The Alaskan highway goes through many pretty valleys, mountains, and forests, and passes odd little towns and semi touristy stores (semi because who stops there?).

 But the real treat for the day was the  4 1/2 hours train ride from Talkeetna to Denali National park.

 We had one of these completely windowed cars, maximizing the opportunities for going ooh and ahhh at the landscape.

And a cool looking conductor......
















As always, Joe took so many pictures that it is hard to choose the best ones, particularly since I am now tired, but here is just a small sample.  

We did get a quick glimpse of a moose and her very young calf - hard to capture from the train- but you get the idea.(take my word for it - there is a moose and her calf in this picture!).







As often when traveling through such remote places, I wonder about the people who live here.

 For instance, the Sherman's (whose house this is, and who had their friends paint it bright blue and name it "city hall" as a joke when they were ion vacation years ago, but then decided they liked it that way, so it has remained such...)- they wave at the train as it goes by - possibly the most exciting part of the day.  While it is beautiful, and easy to romanticize, it must get lonely - not to mention dark and cold- at times.....

 While the trip started in bright sunshine, it was raining when we entered Denali, which is too bad because the view from our hotel would really be "grand"  (It is called the "grande Denali Lodge" after all). But we have been told that wildlife viewing is better when it rains, so we are hoping that our trip into the park will bring much of that tomorrow.  It would also be nice to actually see "the mountain" (Denali just means "the mountain" in the native language, because it so dwarfs all other mountains around it), but we have been told that only about 30% of people who come to the park see it.  It creates its own climate- which tends to be fierce and cloudy.   Still, let's hope for a glimpse.....

Since we are still jet lagged, we had an unreasonably early dinner at the lodge - which included a very nice morel soup, because they are in season right now here - I may have to go for a look...... Note that Joe is looking at his phone instead of at me - because he has forgotten his camera cable and is trying to figure out how to have his very fancy camera communicate with my ipad through wifi so that we can upload the pictures (Obviously, we figured it out......)
Then we had a presentation by a local who had climbed Denali, and now lives here, growing vegetables.....  It made me want to pick up a back pack, crampons, and start training........