25 July 2008

June 29 - AKRR to Denali



















Alaska heading north toward Denali National Park - short, scrubby, stubby, dry, but with many glacier lakes, streams, and rivers. Its an odd world.

06/29/2008
- breakfast at hotel, oatmeal! Yeah! How happy I am is indescribable
- check out, hoof it down to the train station, check in, and wait
- we've paid for gold star service and are in the dome cars with no storage, but great views ... I think I prefer the roominess of Amtrak cars, but I'm not going to hit my head in the Alaska Rail Road (AKRR) car roof like I did in the Amtrak car
- the scenery is lovely, but the broken down vehicles, rusting equipment of barrels, buckets, and irons along the way, and casually discarded used tires give lie to the "last frontier" schtick
- picked up at station by Crow's Nest van, check in and get a room on the far side ... wifi (which I can't actually connect to from our room) AND cell phone service (which I can)
- walk down to Subway for dinner
- walk around town, visit Denali Mountain Works, buy stove, visit with retired sledding dog working at hiking store, come home, make hot tea
- have a hard time getting heater to run, BH works for several minutes to get this to go
- have to run 'hot' water for ten minutes before it heats up, shades of Kalaloch past

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