| Start | Montreal | Toronto | Winnipeg | Vancouver | Cruise Day |
| WP&Y RR | Seward | Anchorage | Denali | Chicago |
The narrative links to the pictures, but the pictures don't link back. You'll have to read (below) to see where they fit.
MY ALASKA ADVENTURE June 7 - July 1, 2003
In June, 2003 I spent a day at Denali National Park. With the idea that getting there is half the fun, I took two weeks to get there, and a week to get home. The trip idea started with a Peace Corps group get together on an Alaska cruise. I thought about going, I looked into possibilities, discovered that getting there by train was possible, and eventually made the arrangements. So this is the saga of the trip.
I started in Albany with a trip to see the locks on the Hudson River, and watched some boats cycled through, going upstream and going downstream. Then off to the Saratoga National Battle Site for a dog walk. We walked for miles and miles, it seemed, through woods and open fields.
Then on Monday morning, June 9, I set off on Amtrak's Adirondack from the new Albany RR station. The new station is an improvement over the old Amshack station - larger, more comfortable, and more elegant. Of course, it's nothing like the old D&H and NYC stations, but you can't expect much from the government that dumps money on the airlines and expects Amtrak to pay its own way.
It was a nice trip north. I saw Fort Ticonderoga from the train. The rail line clung to the cliffside along Lake Champlain. At the border the US Customs Agents got on the train and bothered everybody. I still have no idea why they were on the train. A short distance later we crossed the border and the Canadian Immigration people got on and grilled everybody. From that I learned that I was on the train with a group of Malaysian artists and musicians who were traveling from the US through Canada to perform. I got to talking with one of them about where I was going and that I had traveled through Malaysia years ago. Naturally, it turns out that we both knew a person from my Peace Corps days. I guess the idea of the six degrees of separation really is true.
I saw a few deer in NY state. Then Canada was flat farmland and a lot of that was crisscrossed by high voltage transmission lines and towers. I don't know where all that electricity was going.
The train arrived in Montreal about on time, and I had several hours to wait for my train to Toronto. I diddled around the station, and noticed the open box construction of chrome tubing near the gate for the train, with the sign saying that if your luggage won't fit in the box, it won't fit on the train. So, I had to check my back pack, and worry about whether I'd have time to claim it and get on the train in Toronto in the 40 minutes I had there.
Eventually it was time to go, and I went and got on the train. It was a fancy new one, a Renaissance car, I think they're called. Two seats on one side, one on the other side of the aisle. The glass doors at the ends of the car were a very nice touch. Unfortunately, the seats were more like airline seats than train seats, and were kind of cramped. There was practically no room for carry on luggage. Since this was the overnight train, they gave everybody a pillow and blanket. The blanket was good because the air conditioning blew full blast all night, and it got cold in there. The train stopped for about two hours near Kingston, just to let people sleep and not have a train arriving in Toronto at some ungodly early time. I sleep very well on a moving train, and hardly at all on a stationary train, especially with cold air blowing on me. Before arriving in Toronto I went to the snack car. Is VIA taking lessons from Amtrak? I got a cup of coffee. It was memorably awful. I think they drained the storage batteries through the lubricant tank, and put the result into the coffee pot. Yukk.
I found out later, talking with a guy in the dining car near Vancouver, who worked for VIA Rail marketing, that VIA got an excellent deal on these new trains. They were originally built for use in Europe, but the order was canceled before they were delivered, so the manufacturer needed to dump them cheap, so VIA got them. Other people had complained about the cars, too.
We arrived in Toronto, I went to the baggage claim place and claimed my pack, and went to get in line for Train #1, The Canadian, all with plenty of time to spare. I showed a train guy on the platform my ticket to see which car I needed to go to, and the problem showed up. The car number that I was ticketed on didn't exist. He told me to get on and wait in a little sleeper cubicle till he could find out where I was really supposed to be. He told me not to worry. I had a ticket and would be on the train somewhere. He just had to find out where.
Before too long he came back to tell me I was on the second to last car, so off I went down the platform to the end of the train. It turns out that I was really on the third to last car, because there was an extra car tacked on behind the observation car. There were 17 cars on the train, plus the extra, which was taken off in Winnipeg.
I was traveling Silver and Blue Class. I had a lower birth, one of the old fashioned Pullman seats and births. The lower births were the widest beds on the train. They weren't longer than the others, but being wider had a greater diagonal, so I fit well in it and was able to stretch out to sleep. There were three of them at the front end of the car where I was, and a couple more at the other end. Between were a bunch of little sleeper rooms. There was also a shower. I went two cars forward to the dining car to get a place in the first setting for lunch and dinner, then went another car forward for a real cup of coffee and some rolls for a continental breakfast.
The train was stainless steel, built back in the 50s and had been refurbished so that it was clean and comfortable, but still reminiscent of the days when trains were important and well run. We got a little book that described the train route, and all the places along the way. Another nice touch that let us know what we were seeing out the window.
I don't think I noticed whether we left on time at 9 AM. or were late, but for the most part the train was on time or a bit early to arrive in places. The train announcer said that we'd be traveling through Ontario for the first 28 hours of our trip before arriving in Manitoba. 28 hours through one province? Wow! That's big. There were lots of stops listed in the timetable, but all but a few main ones were pretty much flag stops. People had to arrange 48 hours in advance for the train to stop. We went through a lot of empty country, with lots of lakes and trees. Signs of habitation were mostly railroad related - trucks with the CN logo painted on them. I saw more deer, a beaver, and a fox from the train. We made a brief stop around 3 PM, but our next big stop was in Sioux Lookout, population 3100, the next morning, about 24 hours into the trip, still in Ontario. We had about a half hour there, and everybody seemed to be looking forward to getting off the train and walking around for a bit.
The meals on the train were excellent. There was a choice at each meal, and the food was prepared on board, rather than plastic sealed precooked warmed in the microwave meals. There were interesting people on board, quite an international group. Several people from Germany going to the Rockies for a bus tour of the mountains. Some from England. A woman going to Vancouver to start a cycling trip to Newfoundland. A few Canadians and USians. A German couple from Columbia. Interesting and fun to talk with.
I chatted with one of the German guys, with his phrase book, and he told me he'd lived in Czechoslovakia for several years. He said there was a famous beer made there. I said "Pilsner Urquell?" That was the stuff. There we were, not speaking each others' languages very well, but we both knew excellent beer.
The next big stop was Winnipeg in midafternoon Wednesday. We were there for about 1.1/2 hours while the dining car got reprovisioned, crew changed, and the extra car removed. I wandered around town within sight of the station. The Winnipeg station was designed by the architects who did the Grand Central Station in New York.
We crossed the prairie flatlands, with more power lines crossing here and there. I slept through Saskatchewan, and we arrived in Edmonton Thursday morning. The Edmonton station is outside downtown, across the road from the airport. The two guys refilling the water tanks on the cars whizzed around on rollerblades. That seemed very efficient, since they could move and drag hoses up and down the length of the train pretty quickly.
After Edmonton we started into the foothills of the Rockies, and at mid afternoon we arrived in Jasper. We had a long stop there. There was a CN 4-8-2 on display near the station. The town was a typical tourist town, with all the shops that sell all the same things that are sold everywhere else. They washed the windows on the dome car while we were stopped there.
After Jasper we were really in the Rockies. We stopped and waited in a siding, not unusual, and eventually the eastbound American Orient Express met us on the other track. Its one engine was being pulled by two CN helpers. I presume the Orient Express, and its passengers, paid plenty to have VIA Rail's premier train take the hole to wait for it to pass. The scenery from the dome car was, of course, spectacular. VIA planned the schedule so the train went through much of the Rockies during daylight. I took pictures, but they can't really convey the reality of the mountains. I saw a big horn sheep, which stood so motionless that people thought it was probably stuffed and placed near the track.
Thursday night was the last night on the train. Friday we had an early breakfast while the train descended along the Fraser river toward Vancouver. We arrived a little early, and the grand transcontinental trip across Canada was over. Getting there was at least half the fun.
I got a taxi to my hotel, and arrived before a room was available. The deskman suggested I take a sightseeing tour rather than sit around the lobby waiting. I arranged for one and waited. A room was ready first, so I took that and postponed the tour. I took a shower and a nap. I had a little time to walk down to Canada Place, where the cruise ships dock, and then took the city tour. The tour was on a small bus/large van with a few other people. I think it was pretty thorough since it went on for over four hours. Before going, I'd heard that Vancouver was a wonderful city. That could be true. There were nice parks and gardens. There are even dog parks and dog beaches; what a clever idea. There was a model train and ship museum on Granville Island that I didn't have time to see on the tour, and that was too difficult to get to afterward. It did look interesting.
There is a noticeably large Chinese population in Vancouver, and I think it has the largest China Town west of New York. As in the US, the people came to work on the railroad, Canada's transcontinental was finished in the 1880s, and they stayed and flourished.
The tour was over, the driver was taking us back to our respective hotels, and I was thinking of where do go for supper, when I saw three people I knew walking down the street. Those few degrees of separation, again. I yelled and leapt off the bus and went and had dinner with some Peace Corps friends.
Saturday I took a walk to the Gastown area and looked at the famous Vancouver steam clock. According to the tour, the clock was built and donated to the city by a clockmaker who didn't know much about steam engines, so it never really worked properly, so it is run by electricity instead of steam. It looks like a large grandfather clock, with a face on each of its four sides. There is a little vertical steam engine at the bottom of the works visible through glass side panels. It turns, but not by steam. There are five steam whistles on top of the clock, and every quarter hour the whistles toot the quarter hour and spray anyone nearby with condensate. Steam comes from heating lines under the street.
After that I rode the Skytrain. The trains are computer controlled, with no human motorman. There aren't any ticket takers or sellers. People buy tickets from machines at the stations, and ride on the honor system. I got on at the waterfront end of the line. Because of track work, the system was running shuttle trains from the line end to the Broadway station. The shuttle trains were very crowded. I rode out to the end of the line, then back to the junction of the two lines, and took the other train back to Broadway, then back to the waterfront. From there I walked down to the old railroad area to see the old roundhouse and turntable that was left after the railroad vacated that part of town. There is also a 4-4-0 on display in its own building next to the roundhouse.
That evening those of us going on the cruise got together for dinner at a Thai restaurant. Some of the Peace Corps group who weren't going on the cruise, but came to town for a bit of a get together, joined us, so there were about 20 of us at dinner. We had lots to eat, didn't get too rowdy, and I used up all my Canadian money to pay the tab.
Sunday was cruise start day. Checkout time was 11 AM, the boat left at 5 PM. I looked into the hotel shuttle, which could have taken me to the dock at 2 PM, so I walked over to the dock rather than waiting around for several hours. Shortly after arriving at the dock they started taking Holland-America passengers for the Veendam, so I went through the check in procedures. H-A gave out lots of warnings about bringing the proper identification and proof of citizenship. I had a birth certificate with an official seal that was flattened and invisible except from the back side. I also had my expired passport. My expired passport turned out to be just fine. I was glad something worked.
I got on the boat, went to my room, then went in search of lunch. I found some of the rest of our group, and we managed to get us all seated at just two tables for dinners. There were 14 of us on the trip.
The boat was the Veendam. There seemed to be another Holland-America boat in every port, so there were a bunch of them floating around the area. It held about 1200 people. My cabin was on deck 6, the Lower Promenade Deck, since it had the open promenade around the outside, with wooden deck chairs and people walking in circles for exercise. Above was deck 7, the Promenade deck, with the hotel and shore excursion offices, movie theater, photographer, and the kitchen, which I toured the next day. The lifeboats were hung around the outside, above the deck 6 promenade. Decks 7 & 8 had the main dining room and the theater, with upstairs and downstairs. The casino and several shops were also on 8. There was an atrium from deck 6 through deck 8, with an acrylic plastic sculpture the whole height. The group picture was taken on the atrium stairway. Deck 9 was cabins. Deck 10 was the Navigation Deck; they steered the boat from the front, cabins in the middle, and a small outdoor swimming pool in the back. At one point in my wanderings I peeked into the bridge area of deck 10 and saw that no one was there running the boat. Lido deck was 11 where the big swimming pool was, and various dining areas. 12 was the Sports Deck with tennis courts, and the Crows Nest, a bar. Over the Crows Nest was the Sky Deck, an open deck at the front, the highest place on the ship, except for the exhaust stacks blowing out black smoke. I learned my way around before too long.
We left Sunday, but I don't remember the leaving. Monday was a sunny day as we sailed up the coast. Tuesday we made our first stop, in Ketchikan. I was told Ketchikan has the highest rainfall of anywhere in Alaska, and it was raining. I walked around town a bit in the drizzle. Lots of tourist places selling the same stuff that all tourist places sell.
Wednesday we docked in Juneau, and it was raining again, I heard the weather had been warm and sunny for the previous month, till this day. I went to the state capital. I bought a book on Alaska railroads at a bookstore. I took a bus out to the Mendenhall Glacier, my first glacier. I loved the blue color of the ice at the bottom. The glacier has been receding, since the last ice age. Global warming has been happening for quite some time.
Thursday was to be Skagway. Due to high winds in town the wimp captain couldn't get his boat to the dock, even with the help of side thrusters and two tug boats. We backed off and docked at Haines. The one thing I absolutely wanted to do on the cruise was ride the White Pass & Yukon RR out of Skagway. I booked the trip on the web before I left to be sure I'd have a place on the trip, and it was canceled that day. I waited in line for about an hour at the Shore Excursion office to see if any other trip was possible. It turns out it was possible; I could get a shorter trip for just a little bit more money than I'd already paid. I booked it and waited outside in the cold wind for the Haines to Skagway ferry. The ferry dropped us at the bus which took us to the train in Skagway. The train trip went up to White Pass Summit, about 1.1/2 hour each way. It was a fabulous trip, with very impressive scenery and engineering. Some white knuckle mountain railroading: look out the car window and not see anything underneath except the foaming little river several hundred feet down in the canyon. Black Cross Rock: during the building of the line a 100 ton rock came loose from above and flattened two workers and their mules. The RR put black crosses on the rock and left them as their monument. The ride was as good as any of the narrow gauges in Colorado. Not too much rain that day, but we were up at cloud level, so it was very damp.
The WP&Y was build in about two years
from 1898 - 1900 to move gold rushers from Skagway to Whitehorse
in the Yukon Territory. By the time the railroad was finished,
the gold rush was pretty much over. It was called the White Collar
Line because of the unusually high education level of the workmen.
The RR doctor need to perform an operation, and asked for assistance
from among the workers. A surgeon came and helped, then took his
pick and went back to work on the line. The railroad stayed in
business afterward hauling freight till a highway was build between
Skagway and Whitehorse. The highway took 10 years to build. The
railroad declined after that till someone thought of making a
tourist line out of it, and it has apparently been flourishing
since then. There were maybe three boats docked at Skagway that
day, maybe 3000 tourists, and there were four or five trains that
I saw running, So there were plenty of people to ride, and plenty
of trains running, so it seemed to be a pretty healthy operation.
So, I did get to do the one thing I really wanted to do. I thought
the ship handled their screw up very badly. If I'd have canceled
the trip it would have cost me lots of money. They canceled and
it didn't cost them anything. They should have told people there
were other options available without having them wait in a long
line. They should have more than two people working in the shore
excursion office to handle the hundreds of people who wanted to
book something. Other people were interested in the trip, but
didn't know an alternative was possible.
Friday we visited Sitka, the old Russian town. We didn't tie up a the dock here, but anchored in the harbor and took the tenders (aka lifeboats) to shore. That meant gathering in the theater and taking a number and waiting till it was called to go to the tenders. It was drizzling. I walked from one end of town to the other, then back along the beach.
Saturday was a day at sea, so it didn't rain. We sailed up Yakutat Bay to see Hubbard Glacier. We got close, but most of the six mile face of the glacier was fogged in. We were told that other boats hadn't been able to get as close to the glacier as we did because of poor weather, so we finally had some good weather. There was another glacier, Turner, across the bay which was much more visible. Again, the fabulous blue of the ice. Calving, chunks of ice breaking off the glacier is apparently a common occurrence, but we didn't see it. I did hear some though, through the fog. The sound is called white thunder, since it sounds like ordinary thunder, but it's ice breaking. The bay was filled with chunks of broken ice. We saw seals and whales.
After the glacier we sailed west toward Seward. The sea was rough, meaning there was a slight rocking of the boat. For the most part the trip was very smooth with no noticeable rocking. I think the rocking was subliminal - for several days after the cruise, on solid ground, I'd feel the boat rocking at odd times.
Saturday evening we got our instructions for disembarking: where to put our luggage, when to get off the boat, where to find our luggage at the other end, etc. We also heard some of the favorite questions asked by passengers: Does this stairway go up or down? Does the crew live on board? Is the TV cable or satellite? What do you do with the ice sculpture after it's melted? They tried to be entertaining. Since I was taking the train and staying in Anchorage overnight I got purple tags with black stripes for my luggage. Talking with someone else about getting off got me another set of tags, plain purple. Having two different sets, indicating two different destinations, of tags for my luggage did not inspire confidence in me.
Sunday morning, very early, we were in Seward. Breakfast was earlier than usual. From the Lido deck we could look down and see eagles perched on lamp posts, watching for something to eat. I was among the earliest groups to leave the boat, about 6 AM. I put one of each tag on my back pack to indicate it was going to two places, and then I carried it with me. At least I'd know where it was. Down the gangplank and onto dry land, it wasn't raining for a change, and the cruise was over.
The boat was very nice. The food was wonderful, but overabundant, and there were too often very long lines waiting for it for breakfast and lunch and snack times. Dinner was more leisurely. There was the running of the moose one night. A guy in a moose suit pranced around the dining room followed by the serving crew, wearing baseball hats with antlers, carrying the chocolate mousse deserts. There were a couple of movies every day, and four other movies on the room TVs. There was a casino that didn't interest me at all. So, while I wasn't bored, the cruise overall seemed rather dull. I missed a sense of adventure. The crew was mostly Indonesian and Phillipino. I don't know if our group was unusual, but we did talk with the crew, asked about their lives on and off the boat, etc. This may have been a once in a lifetime trip, since I think I'm not a cruiser. I'm not sure I'd be interested in doing a cruise again.
Down the gangplank and follow the line to the train. I was on my own for this part of the trip; everybody else of the group going on to Anchorage took the bus. In spite of my urging, they still don't understand civilized travel = train travel. The cars were all kind of club cars - tables along each side with four people around them, all reserved seats. Not the most comfortable of arrangements but tolerable for the four hour trip, and it made it easy for the railroad to sell refreshments. We went along beside the water, saw three more glaciers on the way. Saw some Dall sheep on the hillsides. Several times the train announcer invited everybody to the Tiki Bar in the club car at the back of the train, and eventually I went to see it. I couldn't miss the grass hut and plastic palm tree that lights up. The car would have been much more appropriate for a Hawaiian train, were there one. Hoakey? Definitely. Fun? That too.
Someone in Alaska did something clever. The train ran from the cruise ship dock to a station at the Anchorage airport, thus making it easy for people getting off the boat to get on the plane and go home. There was a Holland-America person at the station. I told her what hotel I wanted to go to, and she said to get on the bus to downtown. I arrived downtown and found that my hotel would only send a shuttle to the airport, where I'd just come from. I was told I could take a taxi to the airport, or take a taxi to the hotel. I found a different person and complained: "I told you where I wanted to go, and you sent me to the wrong place. Now fix it!" That worked, they put me on the bus back to the airport. I was with a couple who mistakenly trusted Holland-America to send their luggage to the right place, and they were in search of their misdirected luggage. That little side trip did give me a chance to see some of Anchorage, though.
At the airport was a display for all the local hotels with phones to call them. I found my hotel, and after trying three phones that were dead or didn't connect, (Apparently not everything in Alaska works.) I got through to my hotel and requested a shuttle, which came. Three of the six of us from the group staying there were already at the hotel when I arrived. I guess the bus was faster than the train.
It was Sunday evening, and the group had a final get together at Dave F's place. Two people had already left for home, two had gone on a camping adventure and weren't there. Two others were leaving later in the evening, two more the next morning. The final four of us were taking the train to Denali Park the next day. Later in the evening we discovered that it doesn't get dark in Alaska at times we southerners are used to. It was late at night and still very light outside when the gathering finally broke up.
While we were at Dave's, we got to play with a Segway - the sideways computer controlled scooter with several gyroscopes. It was fun to play with. Getting on for the first time is a bit tricky, one tends to try to balance on it, but the scooter is also trying to balance the rider, so there's some vigorous rocking back and forth till scooter and rider cooperate, and everything settles down. Lean forward, and it goes forward. Lean back and it stops and then goes backward. Twist the handgrips on the handlebars and it turns. It goes up and down bumps between driveway and street. New owners take a course, part of the purchase price, to learn how to ride it. It comes with three keys, allowing different top speeds. We got the slow speed key to try. I'm not sure how practical the thing really is. It seems unnatural to have two wheels on the sides and handlebars in front; maybe my thinking is just too fixed on bicycles.
Monday morning the final four of the group got up and went to the Anchorage station to take the train north to Denali Park. The Alaska Railroad train had two diesel units and 7 or 8 cars painted in blue and yellow, reminiscent of Santa Fe freight colors. Behind those cars were another dozen or more cars belonging to various cruise lines and tour companies. They all seemed oversized, clean and freshly painted, some with glass tops, and all but screamed: "High priced trip."
There was some clear cutting of trees along the route, it looked like someone was building a new road. It turns out that the railroad was being straightened and double tracked, and they were working on the new roadbed. Most of the signals along the line had solar collectors and little windmills to charge their batteries. A good idea for all the remote locations along the line. We saw a couple of moose on the trip north. As we went north the tree line got lower, and was at about 2500 foot elevation. The scenery was unusual, with sparse trees and lush green shrubbery above that to the tundra and barren mountain tops, some with snow on them. It was high mountain scenery, but not too far above sea level.
We crossed Hurricane Gulch, passed through Honolulu, and arrived in Colorado to meet the southbound Denali Star. We arrived and waited. And waited. Finally the PA system announced that both engines of the southbound train had broken down, and it couldn't proceed. We then continued north so we could push the train into a siding so that we could pass it. We passed the train with its Alaska Railroad cars and dozen or more fancy cars behind, and continued to the next siding where we waited for the southbound freight. It would sacrifice one of its three units to pull the southbound passenger train down to Anchorage. We arrived at Denali Park about an hour late, which was OK since we had nothing pressing to do. A nice bit of railroad excitement.
We crammed ourselves and luggage into a school bus type vehicle, and went to our hotel, the Grand Denali. The hotel was high up on a mountain side. The bus driver said we could walk down to what was the town. It was a mile down the hill, and three miles up the hill if we walked. It was a pretty steep road. I had a good view of the valley and train tracks from my room.
That evening the four of us remaining from the PC group went to a dinner theater with a play about the history of Denali. We all agreed we could have missed it, but it really wasn't all that bad. The food was OK, too.
It didn't get dark at all at Denali Park. The sun set very late at night, and rose very early in the morning. Between sunset and sunrise was twilight.
About 6 AM Tuesday we took a wildlife tour into the park. The trip was about 8 hours long, and we saw Dall sheep, caribou, snowshoe hares, Arctic ground squirrels. We saw some grizzlies about a mile away, a half mile, and then 300 yards. Bears in Denali are smaller than their lowland relatives because of the sparsity of food in the area. There were no eagles because of no fish in the rivers. The rivers were so heavy with silt that fish couldn't live - the silt clogged their gills. We didn't see any moose on our trip. Part way into the park the road is closed to all but bus traffic to minimize traffic in the park. We went in until we were about 50 or 60 miles from Denali. We could have gotten closer, but apparently the view was no better than the one we had. Denali is Mt. McKinley, and has always been called Denali by Alaskans. The McKinley name came from someone who published a diary of his travels in the NY Times (I think) many years ago. He called it McKinley, and the name stuck in the lower 48. Denali means something like the great one.
There are little mountains in the park, and there are higher mountains, with snow capped peaks which look like pretty respectable mountains. Behind them is Denali, a huge mass that dwarfs all the other mountains. It is truly impressive. It is white, wreathed in clouds, and kind of blends into the sky, so I don't think we saw the whole mountain.
About 1910 a group of Fairbanks locals, called the Sourdough group, left Fairbanks in December, with 50 below temperatures by dog sled to climb Denali. They thought locals, rather than foreigners, should be the first to climb it. They arrived in March and climbed the mountain with little equipment. They carried a 39' spruce pole up the mountain with them. At the top of the north peak they put up the pole with flag on top, which they figured could be seen from Fairbanks with a telescope as proof of their climb. When they got down, they couldn't see the flag, so no one believed they'd climbed the peak. In 1913 another group, of foreigners with equipment, climbed the south, higher peak. They saw the flag on the north peak, acknowledged that the sourdoughs had climbed it earlier, and the sourdoughs became famous.
We had an interesting tour guide/bus driver. He was probably in his 30s, came to Alaska to drive the bus in the summer, and wintered in the warm south, Mexico or South America. His wife migrated with him. He was quite knowledgeable about the area.
I stopped at the park visitors center after the tour. There wasn't much at the center, except for lines of people waiting to get camping permits.
Wednesday morning I woke up early, about 5 AM, which I didn't want to do. I had time for a leisurely breakfast. The group of four got to the train station to take the noon train back to Anchorage. We had dinner on the train. It wasn't bad, but not as good as food on the Canadian. We arrived on time around 8 PM. From there two of us made our way to the airport to fly out of Alaska. My plane came in from St. Louis, and was about 1 1/2 hours late, due to thunder storms in the Midwest. For some reason the airline thought they'd turn the plane around in 40 minutes, and leave about 1:30 AM, instead of midnight. We all got on the plane and waited and waited. A mechanic needed to sign off on something, and he'd left the airport. They had to find him, get him there, let him consult his manuals, then sign the paperwork. We left Anchorage about four hours late. We had some pretty fancy food for an airline these days: a chicken sandwich.
Fortunately, I was able to sleep on the plane a bit after we took off. We arrived in St. Louis four hours late, and I'd already missed two connecting flights to Chicago. I got another flight leaving within a half hour, and arrived in Chicago about 1 PM. I took the CTA train down to the loop, then a bus to the south side to stay with Kirsten's mother in Hyde Park. When I left Chicago, the trains didn't go all the way to O'Hare, so this was my first time riding that train. I had been traveling about 26 hours when I arrived. I knew that part of the trip was going to be pretty grueling.
Friday I finished my last roll of film in the neighborhood, and took all my film do be developed at a one hour photo place. Then I went to the Museum of Science and Industry, just down the street, to see the new model railroad exhibit. I'd read about it on the net, and in Model Railroader Magazine. Since I was in Chicago, and only two blocks away, I had to see it. It was worth the trip. I think it's larger than the old layout. They still have the same old displays around the layout in the train room, they've put new, more comprehensive labels on them than I remember. The surrounding displays are heavily steam related; I was glad to see they hadn't discarded them as obsolete. To be modern, there's a 727 flying over the train layout.
Saturday I got together with a college friend, about the only person from college who I've kept in touch with, and that only every 8 - 10 years. We met at the Chicago Cultural Center downtown, the old Public Library. We got tickets and took the free Loop Tour on the El. It went around three times, and a guide narrated the tour of the buildings in the Loop. I gradually began to realize that it seemed like 3/4 of the buildings had been build after I'd left Chicago. The La Salle Street station was gone, and something rather hideous was in its place. From the loop we took a free tourist trolley (a rubber tired trolley, not one on tracks) up to Navy Pier. That had also been rebuilt since I'd left. It seemed to be a popular spot, sort a combination of shopping mall and amusement park. There is a free stained glass museum on the pier with a number of windows from Chicago. The museum shows the history and variety of stained glass in the area. It was worth the time spent, and the price couldn't be beat.
We went to dinner at Pizzeria Due, one of our old college days haunts. We asked what had happened to all the Chianti bottles. They were hanging all over the place in the early 60s when we used to go there, but were all gone now. People at the restaurant didn't know what we were talking about.
Sunday I got a ride to the north side to visit with my friend again. We went to the Gay Pride March, but I got there so late that we'd missed it. We were in time to see the parade of street sweepers picking up the mess left over from the parade. We walked up Halsted and down Broadway. The area is called Boys Town because of the gay population. Halsted Street has rainbow pillars on the sidewalks. We had dinner at a Thai noodle place. Great, greasy noodles with lots of hot peppers. It is probably as close to the restaurants I used to frequent in Thailand as boards of health in this country would allow.
Monday I got the CTA north to the airport to leave. I had a thorough search before getting on the plane, since I set off the metal detector. I'm not sure if it was my watch or belt buckle that set it off, since I took all the change out of my pocket. The plane left on time, and I arrived in Albany on time, so that part of the trip was uneventful.
Tuesday, July 1, I drove home from Albany. All was well at home. I turned the water and gas back on and lit pilot lights. I went to the kennel to pick up Lydia. I think she remembered who I was, and she didn't seem miffed for being left for three weeks. The kennel said she was a real sweetheart, which was nice to hear. She'd destroyed her milk jug toy, which she likes to do.
As a quick summary: I took a trip to spend a day at Denali National Park, and spent two weeks to get there, and a week to get home from there. That was the longest trip, in time and distance, that I'd taken in many years. I think I'll remember it for a while.
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