Alaska - Choo Choo goes the train to McKinley!

Today we ditch the motor coach and rode a train to our next stop of McKinley, Alaska. We were headed to the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge - Talkeetna for a one night stay. Even though our group had priority seating, we were told to limit our onboard luggage to just one purse or backpack. The rest of our luggage made the trek via bus. Our guide originally assigned everyone to the four top table seating so that every seat was full and you had to sit with others. Once onboard though we discovered that the train wasn't as full as they expected and no one cared if you chose to spread out to your own booth.

The train featured tables for dining on the lower level and a glass domed upper level. Due to the smaller amount of dining tables, we all had to be dine with others and assigned times to go down for our lunch in shifts. There was a small menu to choose from when we were called down to dine. Our tablemates were an Asian couple where the husband's extent of English was limited to a couple key phrases - "Ask my wife (also "My wife will pick for me") and one I'll always remember fondly - "Camera eats first!" as he took a picture of everything he consumed. Hmm, is that where I get it from now? #doingitfortheblog

The young lady with the microphone was one of two guides onboard to point out the sites as we rode by. 

Some of the other itineraries use this train so you may find yourself riding it between other cities as well. For anyone riding the train, they had a list of drinks and food items you could purchase:

There's just something so hauntingly beautiful about looking out at the train tracks in front and behind you:

Soon we passed another train run by the same company so our guides/waitresses started encouraging everyone to wave and make noise at their colleagues on the other train.

Once off the train, we boarded a motor coach once again for the short ride over to the Mt. McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge. After looking over the optional extra cost shore excursion choices for this lodge, we decided there was nothing that peaked our interest and devoted the rest of the day to relaxing. The bus pulled up right next to a small creek with running rock waterfall and this little guy came to bring us some fresh caught dinner.

This gentleman from our tour group looked around, said "I don't see any signs that say we can't climb on the statues." Then hands his wife their camera to take a picture of him pretending to wrestle the bear for the salmon. 

Well, to be fair...this sign 10 feet away only says "Do Not Climb on Rocks."

As we walked the grounds later, I spotted this other sign next to another bear statue by the main building: