Riding the Rails

It's always been my dream to ride the rails hobo-style and I have to imagine today's journey is basically the same thing. I've actually never been on a real train before - I've only ever been on trams or subway cars. That all changed today as we took the train from Denali to Talkeetna and I have to say, I don't get why everyone complains about Amtrak.

Before we boarded though, Jess felt one of the hundreds of earthquakes Alaska has every year. I didn't feel it as I was walking around but she was adamant and sure enough, one wasn't very far from us when we checked the USGS earthquake site a few minutes later. She's basically a seismograph at this point.

The train cars are double-deckers with floor-to-ceiling windows on the top deck (where you sit). It was pretty nice and comfortable...for the first couple of hours as there was a guide narrating the whole thing. We did get to go to different elevations with some lakes still frozen and a fair amount of snow on the ground (which I guess will melt over the next week or so). There was even a place that was a clear river with giant, dirty pieces of ice on the bank where there was an ice jam just two weeks before that was washed out a section of the railroad and closed it down for days.

The trip took about 5 hours, but there are times when the train stops to switch supplies with other trains (there are sections with side tracks so two trains can pass, although most of the time it's just one line) or the train simply has to stop and manually flip a switch if another train has passed on the side rail. When we arrived in Talkeetna later than expected, we didn't have much time between then and our dinner reservations so we ended up not eating there and instead just walked around the town and browsed the shops. We were told it was an artsy town and I guess it was, but it seemed like it was more gift shops than local artists. Of course, while we are loving the trip, much of it is geared towards getting you to the next gift shop.

Here's where it washed out a couple weeks ago.

It had started to rain when we got there and it was pretty cold and breezy as it was so we ended up just walking up and down the town (which is basically two roads) and then catching a bus to our hotel which was about an hour away. As we arrived, we saw the view from the hotel and we were lucky as the clouds were breaking up at that point. Once again, we got multiple views of Denali before the clouds rolled in again - all told, there was about a 10 minute stretch when it was visible and we were lucky to arrive right at that point. The main lodge was really nice but it was a short walk to our room...well, it was really a run because it opened up and starting pouring on us as we made our way. This room was probably the least nice and our view was of the road but since the main lobby's view was so spectacular, it didn't matter.

Our dinner reservations were with a couple from Saskatchewan named Jack and Deb. It was a really nice long dinner (I even tried something new for an appetizer; OK, it was parmesan flatbread but still) and by the time we were finished, we headed back to the room to relax. There was another early day coming up since we were only staying one night there and we had to be up early to have our bags ready.

As they say in Talkeetna, "You like that moose magnet? That'll be eight dollars." Note: They really do they say this.