Slow Train to Denali

In some ways I'm very happy that I've visited Alaska before the season started. There were very few people on the roads, I could decide on a whim where I would stay the night. But some things have been closed. I was originally going to visit Denali while I had the RV, but the 51 mile tour was truncated to 31 miles until the day after I gave my RV back, so I decided to do it this way. And I explained to the tour company why I wanted to do it this way, and that if the tour was still 31 miles, I would do it while I had the RV. Anyway, the tour I will be doing is the one I could have done while I had the RV!

The train goes at a sedate pace, and when anyone sees something interesting, it slows down even further, so everyone can see it. At first the cloud was reasonably all encompassing, and it rained. The scenery looked uninteresting and rather flat and soggy. People who dislike mud shouldn't go near Alaska or Canada. But toward the end of the trip it became much better, and blue sky appeared.

People saw a black bear, but I didn't. There were moose, but they were solitary and far away. But there were lots of trumpeter swans.

And old beaver dams.

And the scenery was beautiful.

Talkeetna station wasn't near the town, but it did have a picture of a Moose (this town is known for its moose dropping festival). This is also where people live archaically in the woods.

I took a picture of Wasilla, but like its most prominent citizen, it had few redeeming features, so it didn't make the cut.