On Thursday morning, we had to check out of our suite, but we still found time to do a few fun things around the Lodge. We enjoyed a buffet breakfast at the 20320 Alaskan Grill. We attended the naturalist's educational presentation on bears. We caught some of the movie "Over Alaska" playing continuously in the hotel's meeting room. We caught a few more glimpses of cloud-covered Denali. Finally it was time to begin our long journey home.
We caught the 1:00 bus shuttle to Talkeetna where we would board the train to Anchorage.
The Talkeetna Depot.
Our train pulling into the station.
The train ride was a lot of fun. Our car was obviously built for its passengers to be able to enjoy the scenery. As soon as we boarded, we were asked if we would like to eat lunch in the car's restaurant. We said yes - only about 7 of the passengers did so - and we were escorted to the car's lower level. It was fun to dine on a train. We shared our table with a couple of Alaskan residents who were just taking a few days to ride the train up to Fairbanks and back. They live south of Anchorage near the Kenai peninsula. It was very educational to hear of their experiences with winters, bears, and moose!
After lunch we returned topside to enjoy the incredible scenery of streams and mountains and forests as we hurtled through the wilderness.We saw the towns of Wasilla and Palmer and Anchorage. It was a great way to begin bringing our Alaskan adventure to a close.
The train also had an open-air observational platform that we spent some time on as we approached Anchorage.
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