Coach and Train to Anchorage (Whittier Cruise Terminal)

A nice place to while away the morning!



Beautiful fireplace in the Lodge. Can you find the sled dogs?



Boarded the coach to the Talkeetna depot around 11 a.m. It was a one hour ride to the "depot". This is a thing that Princess definitely needs to work on - this transfer spot is out in the middle of nowhere - three porta-johns and only a few logs to sit on, and quite a long wait! Here I am enjoying my log...



It took this many buses to transfer all of the tourists coming and going. The facilities were not adequate to the task, in my opinion. But it certainly did not spoil the day! It was just a minor glitch.



Ze train! Ze train! The train rides are so much more enjoyable than the buses. The scenery along the route was as spectacular as it gets!



PICTURES FROM THE TRAIN RIDE (Talkeetna to Whittier)









DICK'S NOTES:

Sat 5/22/10
Coffee shop & internet. Finally figure out that if you keep your cup, the refills are free.
We hang out ‘til 11, bus to Talkeetna, sit in front. B&J get crying baby in back. One hour ride, last view of McKinley. Clear at top in AM, all clear on drive.
Station – the pits. Two pit toilets, log seating. 30+ min wait. Board train, car 1. It turns out that car 1 is in the front when north bound, at rear when south bound.
Crying baby in car 6.
Car 1 develops hot box, might have to drop from train. Yard workers come on board in Anchorage. If car dropped we would be reassigned to other cars but they would find us to give us our shipboard information. Trains stops near siding. View effects of 1964 quake.
Medical emergency! Our tour guide (Tammy) is MedTec. Tammy has to go forward. Train proceeds slowly south. When she returns she claims credit for keeping car 1 attached.
Good views of tide going out from Turnagain Arm and receding glaciers on the right, avalanches and waterfalls on left. Train slow, arrive nearly one hour late but still in our car.
Disembark at Whittier, good hike to check in through security. Sniders way ahead. Bill claims he saw an orca.
Find room, meet room steward (Maria Luisa)
Dinner in assigned dining room - Sniders are in the other one. Share table w/ Rod & Nancy – VT. & Charles & Cathy (Paula Deen) – Ark. Excellent company!!!
Back in room @ 11:30ish, unpack, bed just after 12. Long day!!

We boarded the Coral Princess, found our stateroom, went to the lifeboat drill in the Universe Lounge, and had a very late dinner. Exciting day!

The view from our balcony. It stayed light until 11 p.m.



Our stateroom (E 714 - E is for Emerald Deck 8.

A Free Morning and on to Mt. McKinley

We had a free morning to enjoy the Wilderness Lodge. The scenery was gorgeous, and it was fun people-watching. Dick used his laptop, and I rusticated.

INTERIOR OF THE PRINCESS WILDERNESS LODGE:



THE LINE FOR COFFEE WAS ENDLESS!



We had time to catch a shuttle to the Denali National Park Visitor Center - I'm so glad we could fit that in because it was a very informative and entertaining place.




Dick's notes:

Fri 5/21/10
Coffee shop a zoo, long lines but the kids are pleasant and friendly. Great staff! Visit VC. Talk to gal about trail-less park. When caching mentioned, she is in Anchorage in winter and teaches it in local schools. States that she grew up in small town near TC, I’m so amazed I forget to get the name of the town.
At lunch our waitress is Nicole. We talk about where we are from, she says Minnesota, we say Traverse City, she steps back and says she thinks she has waited on us before. When we tell her that this is the only time we’ve visited the dining room, she says ”No. I mean in Traverse.” She works at the Happy Hog in the winter!!!
We load the bus for Mt McKinley. A clear day and the mountain is fully visible in all its glory.
After arrival, check in, visit room, and enjoy dinner, and???
it’s time for bed

The bus ride to the McKinley Princess Lodge was two hours plus. But the scenery was so breathtaking that it flew by. They say that the mountain is only visible a few days a year, so once again we had the pixie dust. It was glorious and cloudless and we could see it clearly all day. Such luck! (Denali is the Athabascan name for Mt. McKinley.)

Fairbanks to Denali

Our beautiful train to Denali:


Waiting for the bus ride to the depot: Front lobby, Riverside Lodge: COACH FROM RIVERSIDE LODGE TO RAIL DEPOT: This was a great train ride. We left Fairbanks around 8 a.m. and got to the Denali depot around noon. We sat upstairs in beautiful observation cars, and had wonderful views of everything along the way. Breakfast was served on the first level - the food was great, and the service was great also. Here we are at breakfast: Dick and I in the observation car: At the village of Nenana, every year they have a contest to see when the river will thaw, or "go out". This year it thawed on April 29 at 9:06 a.m. People bet on the exact date and time of the thaw. It's as good as winning the lottery!

Nenana is 65 miles southwest of Fairbanks on the George Parks Highway.
Nenana is at mile 412 of the Alaska Railroad, on the south bank of the Tanana River (just east of the mouth of the Nenana River), and at mile 305 of the Parks Highway.

It is an historic community - an Athabascan Native Village 56 miles (as the raven flies) from Fairbanks and 75 miles north of Denali National Park. Nenana has air access, with a 5,000 ft. paved runway for float and ski planes.

Nenana Ice Classic 2010

The Jackpot for the 2010 Nenana Ice Classic is $279,030.00. The payout will be made on June 1st The winners are: Chris Arnold - Purchased his ticket at Marylou Redman/Diamond Jim's in Indian, Ak Donna Smith - Purchased her ticket at Carrs/Sageway in Wasilla Alison Foley - Purchased her ticket at Carrs/Safeway - Bently in Fairbanks April 29, 2010 9:06 AM Alaska Standard Time Tanana River went out Tripod clock stopped.

This is where we learned that "na" means river. Talkeetna, Chena, Tanana, and Nenana are all river names.

Here, just for you, are 16 seconds of our train ride through Alaska:

Denali Natural History Tour

Dick's notes:

Thurs 5/20/10
Board train for Denali Princess in mist and rain. Rain clears as we move south. See Dall sheep and 3 dead wolves from train. Not see Denali.

From station, shuttle to lodge. Check in and go on Natural History tour with driver Gary. He has been in Alaska 9 years, ex-long haul trucker. Very passionate about park.
From the bus we see caribou, very pregnant moose, artic hare (10 feet away) spruce grouse, ptarmigan, artic ground squirrel, and best of all a mother grizzly and cavorting cub.
Tour has stops at wilderness center, cabin for reenactor, and a talk with native Athabaskan.
Dinner at the bistro

We settled in at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, and freshened up for our Natural History tour.

This was a five hour bus tour that felt like an hour - and left you wanting more! We learned about the history, culture and wildlife of Denali National Park from a sincere, passionate bus driver whose life has been changed by being in the wilderness. He narrated beautifully, he was knowledgeable, and he even read us poetry. It was the most successful wildlife tour you can imagine. We saw caribou, moose, grizzly bears, ptarmigan, Arctic ground squirrel, and snowshoe hare. Unbelievable. The bus drivers were all exclaiming about how rare a day this was. We've been sprinkled with pixie dust.

MOOSE (2) This was a very pregnant moose. I'm sure she's a mama by now.





CARIBOU (2) Did you know that caribou and reindeer are the same animal? The difference between caribou and reindeer is that reindeer can fly. We have it on good authority!



DENALI SCENERY


VISITOR CENTER


GRIZZLIES (4) There's at least one bear in each picture. One of them clearly shows the cub. This was the most fascinating part of the tour for me.









ATHABASCAN MAN DESCRIBING CULTURE OF NATIVE AMERICANS



DENALI SCENERY


BACK TO THE WILDERNESS LODGE FOR DINNER

Fairbanks

Dick's notes for day 2:

Wed 5/19/10
Fairbanks Princess Lodge.
Get up and chase caches, 1 nano, 2 magnetic key holders. Can’t get across the river.
Paddle boat ride. Discover that the native culture presentation is commercial enterprise by the paddle boat company. We forgot to put the memory card back in camera. None for sale in gift shop. Fred Meyer only 1 ½ mile. (Isn't it interesting that Frederick Meijer in the midwest and Fred Meyer in the west have the same type of department store...) On the way I discovered a walking/bike path across the river. Drop coin in decon container. Get back and buy Bill a beer while I have Salmon chowder and a salad.

MORNING AT LEISURE:

Well, it's a good thing we didn't have any excursions planned for the morning, because the hotel restaurant was extremely slow in serving. It was a buffet breakfast, but I was silly enough to order just blueberry pancakes and not the buffet. It took forever. It was a real blueberry breakfast breakdown.

STERNWHEELER RIVERBOAT CRUISE:

Fully narrated cruise along the Chena and Tanana Rivers on the Riverboat Discovery.
We saw a bush pilot's demonstration, and a native American fish wheel. We went ashore at an authentic Athabascan village and saw furs, artists, and heard about the native culture. The boat stopped at what used to be Susan Butcher's house and saw the sled dogs that run the Iditarod. It was a great demonstration of how they are harnessed, how enthusiastic they are, and then they took off running pulling a 4-wheeler where we could see them from the boat. This was a great excursion.

The reason why there are no pictures from this day is because I left the picture card in the USB port of my computer at home. (Wince) Dick made a special dinnertime trip to the Fairbanks WalMart to get a new card.

Destination Fairbanks

Dick's notes from our first travel day:

Tues 5/18/10 The adventure begins!
Flight @ 2:30. Start with breakfast @ Omlette Shope, one last pass through TC and then to airport aprox 11:30, check bags, one overweight ($70), then to security and disaster. Nancy is obviously a threat. Off with shoes and then all bags pawed through. Although she had containers in clear bags, another one needed. Once that was done, bags screened again and then we were allowed to proceed.
O’Hare went smoothly, flight was long. At SeaTac we get a chair and travel to Terminal N (walkway, tram, walkway) to meet with B&J. Wheel chair leaves. After lunch, back at the gate there has been a change in gate and time. Round up another chair and make the change. On to Fairbanks and bags, they made it!! As we fly in at midnight local, we could see the sunset on the horizon.
Board bus and wait. We learn that we are the first group through. It’s the young driver's first trip. We are waiting for 2 more people. We wait. Another plane lands, we wait. Finally 10 (ten) more board. Now he says we are waiting for 2 more people.
After a while 3 more board and we are good to go, but oops, we can’t. You have to remove the chocks from in front and back of the wheels first. (How funny!)
Finally, we get to the Princess Lodge in Fairbanks, check in and go to bed, it’s been a 28 hour day. I don’t think it ever got totally dark

COACH FROM FAIRBANKS AIRPORT TO PRINCESS RIVERSIDE LODGE:

We arrived at midnight. There was a wait for the bus. Basically we just arrived at our room and collapsed!

Shelly's B-Day

We'll be gone for Memorial Day weekend, so we did the flowers for Mom and Dad today. While we were getting flowers, we picked up some for Shelly's birthday!

The cemetery was a little bit overgrown - I guess they haven't had their spring spruce-up yet. Mom and Dad have just about the first real flowers. There are a bunch of fake flowers there.

I'm sure that they'll mow and have everything shipshape by Memorial Day.

Tonight was Shelly's birthday party and we had a great time. It was fun to talk to Barb and Jim, Adam and Melanie, and of course, Shelly and Chris. We met some of their friends - it was a good group with lots of very cute toddlers and children! Izzy has taken her first steps just this week, but she didn't perform for us this time.

Chris made the cake from scratch - it was yummy. It was his first attempt at baking anything! A good time was had by all - I'm so glad we went!





There was a contest to see who could use a picture of Shelly in the most creative way - we won!

Actually, to be brutally honest, we won because nobody else did anything! Thanks for the bottle of wine :)

Such a Pleasant Day

This expedition began as a maintenance run for our cache at Walton Junction. Everything was fine there, and it was a beautiful day for a drive, so...we picked up a few on the way home:

5/14/2010 You found Wheelhouse by the bay (Traditional Cache)
Got back today but something was different! The slip is empty! The boat is gone! We sure hope that whoever took it had permission. Using the new cords and the nicer weather we made a quick find. TFTC

This cache was at the Maritime Center, and the ship
state of Michigan" had gone sailing.

5/14/2010 You found By Nine 9 o'clock the "tea" is over (Traditional Cache)
As mentioned in our log for a nearby cache, this town was my ancestral home.

(Fife Lake)

The Battenfields and George Van Pelt came here at the end of the 19th century. My great aunt Suzy lived just down the street. The library is new to us, we will have to come back when it's open. Thanks for the fun. Took nothing, Left Jack Squat!

5/14/2010 You found West Sharon Access Site (Traditional Cache)
Boy do the cache and contents ever look familiar! We were out checking our cache across the river and just had to grab this one. (Or maybe it was the other way around.) This is our first visit to this new launch site. Probably not our last. Thanks for the fun, much better than a night at some motel.

(Kelcutah placed this cache. The cache container was a prize that Dick put together for the Expo Event in Grayling. Kelcutah chose the ammo can over a free night in the Jacuzzi suite in the Days Inn!)

5/14/2010 You found Take a Walk on the Mild Side (Traditional Cache)
This town is my ancestral home.

(Fife Lake)

My grandmother was a Battenfield who married a Van Pelt. The families migrated here at the end of the 19th century. Many of my ancestors are buried in the Springfield Twp. Cemetery. Numerous uncles were farmers in the area. As boy, over 60 years ago, we often came into town on Friday nights to watch movies on the wall in the park downtown. We feel that it was a sad day when the Inn changed hands. Thanks for the memories.

5/14/2010 You posted a note for Walton Junction (Traditional Cache)
Wow!! We think the cache might be haunted! The original container seemingly appears and disappears with out notice. Be careful!

(We put out a new and different cache container at this location because the old container kept falling to the ground. The last finder claims that he found both containers! We came to check it out but we only found the new one.)

My Day So Far

Went to neighbor Mary's house to sign up her housekeeper, Cheryl, to come to our house too, in the future. I can't call her a cleaning lady, because I think she's an upgrade from that, so for the time being I'm calling her our housekeeper. She comes here next Wednesday - hooray!

Then I sat in a dental tech's chair for an hour getting my teeth cleaned, and listening to Kathy's stories. Dick picked me up and we went to the mall. We bought new ditty bags for our trip and some approved travel sized items to put inside. Dick got some sport pants and a really attractive polo shirt.

On to the food court for a really late lunch and some carousel-watching. China Wok, of course. While I finished up, Dick went down to the shoe store for new shoes and sox. Then back to Target for shoe polish.

We are beginning to have fun getting ready for our cruise.

Home for a rest, and after this I think I'll go out side and cut daffodils. It's another supremely gorgeous day!

MORE DAY;

I deadheaded all of the daffodils and dug all of the dandelions out of the perennial garden. Hey - deadheaded daffodils & dug dandelions - how alliterative! Dick is splitting wood and adding it to the woodpile in the shed, and also getting the Schoolhouse ready to give to Baby Izzy.

Down by woodhenge, in the old volleyball court area, there's a strutting goose patrolling the entire field. Yesterday when I came through in the golf cart, he just walked around quietly until I got a little too close. The he flew to the river and swam around honking very loudly! He was still there today, so I'm thinking that maybe there's a nest somewhere around there. I think I'll just let him be for a while, although it takes 28 to 35 days for the eggs to hatch.

GenFest Invites

The invitations for GenFest are ready to mail! The envelopes were all stuffed and addressed and ready to go, so we took a drive over to the Grawn Post Office, jut for something different. Well...I hope everything got mailed correctly. The woman behind the counter was very flustered - lots of customers were in the lobby waiting, and she was obviously having trouble operating the equipment and finding things. When it was my turn, she said, "I just started as Postmaster here this week!" Gee, and it's already Tuesday!

I had a small package to send to Laurie, and the Postmaster was befuddled as to the best way to send it. I left there thinking that none of my things might make it to their destinations!

10 Years ! of Caching

On May 1st, 2000, selective availability was turned off and the GPS satellite system was available for civilian use. Three days later the first geostash was placed. Ten years later and there are now over 1 million geocaches and 4 million registered users! Boy has our hobby grown!

For Christmas, 2002, Jana gave Dick his first GPS. It took six months to break it in, and we first went geocaching on Monday, June 16, 2003. So for us, it's only been 7 Years ! of caching.

We have found a cache in every county of Michigan:



and in 41 States of the Union:



In two weeks we're going to Alaska with the Sniders to pick up an Alaska cache. While we're out west, we're also going to find a cache in Washington State, and then go visit the original cache site in Oregon. It's no longer there, but there's a plaque or something at that site.

Happy Anniversary Geocaching!