Alaska Cruise, Yukon & Denali

 Monday, 21 August – Denali-Anchorage. 
Time to leave this beautiful place. Bags were out at 7 and we had a very nice breakfast at Karsten’s. Our server was Ali from Uzbekistan, who will go home in 10 days for his last year at university, where is his studying foreign languages: English, Chinese, and Russian. A very interesting young man. (Many of the seasonal workers are students and we chatted with a few of them. Our guide on the train was a retiree, also like many other seasonal workers.  With a very sparse local population and a huge influx of tourists, Holland America/Princess recruits people from all over the world who work for about 4 months. It’s a great experience in a safe environment.) .

At 8:30 we boarded the bus and went to the train station to board the dome-car train for the 8 ½ hour trip to Anchorage. 
The views were amazing and Jim’s narration very interesting. Lunch was served on the lower level, where there were views from a different perspective.
Lots of woods, rivers, streams, distant mountains, abandoned telegraph lines, blueberry fields, the occasional road. Several other trains, usually causing us to stop for a few minutes on a siding. When we passed the best viewpoint for Danali, it was totally invisible. Ah well! Not seeing the mountain on this trip.  Seems like some folks on this train did get a photo :

 

Mysteriously. Wildlife was not prolific, though we saw quite a few trumpeter swans, a couple of ptarmigans and an osprey. We passed through one large burned area, result of the huge Willow Fire in 2019.

   

[Larry: Spent much of the ride on the back platform with better views and lots of "train-lore" from the crew.  We stopped when meeting the opposite train bringing folks from Anchorage so many of the train crew could exchange to reverse their trip. Also one of the platform tourists was also a train fanatic and had the Conductor search out spikes from the ballast when switch us to a siding.] 
Arriving in Anchorage around 6pm, we met the usual Holland America efficiency – busses were waiting for us and, as we boarded, we were handed envelopes with room keys, baggage tags and transfer information for airport departures. 

We were sorry to say good bye to Dave and our fellow-travellers and to see the end of this great vacation. We set out to find a place to eat and found what appeared to be a great one across the street, but it had a 90-minute wait for a table. Turns out that there are very few choices. We ended up at a pizza place. Larry had pizza, but my option ended up being something sort of resembling poutine.

All fine. Comfortable room, if not up to the usual Holland America standard.

Tomorrow our travel begins at 2pm (Alaska time = Eastern time minus 4 hrs) with a change in Vancouver, and we won’t be home until the next morning.
Final Cruise Leader Combination of shared photos

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