Alaska days 1 & 2

 Back In July Dave and I FINALLY made it to Alaska!! We have been dying to go for ages but just haven't wanted to spend the money or take the time. Living so far away from family, the only vacations we take are to see them and I don't want to miss seeing them for a year for my selfish reasons. But we decided we needed to do it when the boys are old enough to be fine with a sitter for an extended period of time. We planned for a few months and decided on the perfect trip; everything we have ever wanted to do because when are we ever going to go back. We convinced my parents to take the boys for 10 days, and we headed out. The boys and I headed to Moses Lake in June so I could hang out for a week before I flew up to meet Dave.

Dave and I met in Seattle where we both had layovers. This is where we found Qdoba...amazing.

There was one in Anchorage and we ate there probably 4 times as we passed through, it was so good. 

 The Alaska coastline. We were so excited!!



The next morning we headed down to the train depot, where we caught a train to Denali National Park. We

booked the Gold Star Service which has an open upper observation deck and a private dining car. It was fancy, but I'm glad we did it.

 Sydney in front of the Train Depot.

   Dave and a Totem Pole.

  Our tickets. Funny how I paid for them together and everything but they still miss spelled one of our last names. I guess it could have been worse.

   Us before our adventure. I have never ridden a train before so I was super excited; Dave who has ridden LOADS in Japan, didn't share my enthusiasm but still let my have my fun.

 One of the little rivers we crossed.

  

   Dave

                                                                                 Syd

   Us together. We stood in between two of the cars that had a door that the top half opened. That way we could see everything and it was less crowded.

   We passed through Wasilla and the lake was full of these Water Planes; I can't think of the name right now but they were cool.

    The train stopped in this little town to pick up supplies and a few people. Dave hoped off so he could snap a picture of me on the train.

   Me along a river. The tour guide said the water is this gray color because of the silt in the water from the glacier runoff.

   A clear stream. There were a few people we saw fishing in there. Dave would have jumped off to join them if I would have let him.

   More open space. Seriously it was so pretty.

   This is Hurricane Gulch. The tallest train bridge in Alaska.

    It was like 900 feet tall. It was high.

   The train stopped right after we crossed the bridge. I'm not sure that the whole train was off the bridge, we thought maybe that they were stopping for pictures but the guide said that the train had lost power. That's nice, broke down in the Alaskan wilderness. Luckily we were only there for maybe 15 minutes.

   The inside of the train.

   The Denali Train Depot. The train ride took 8 hours, long but so beautiful and I loved every minute of it. There was a dining car on the bottom floor of our car. For lunch we got sandwiches from the Deli car but we decided to check out the dining car for dessert. We had this Brownie ala Mode thing. It was AMAZING!! I'm so glad I told Dave he needed to get his own or else he wouldn't have gotten any.  Once we got to Denali we caught the shuttle to the Denali Cabins, which were on the outskirts of 'town'. The Driver's name was Mark, he was so funny. He gave us all this paper of his recommendations to eat and do while there. Some of his thoughts were so funny and mostly about the places with the best drinks.

   We checked into our cabin and headed over to check it out.  It was fun. I didn't expect to stay in a Marriott so I was okay with it. and it was really clean.

   We headed to Mark's number one pick for food in Denali, because it had 52 beers on tap. It was a pizza, pasta place. It was great! Dave ate a whole pizza himself, I have fettuccine alfredo. It really was good food. We sat next to the bar, so we got to check out all the beers on tap, some were really weird, some DIRTY, but it was seriously from one wall to the other of taps.

  We got back from dinner and wondered around the cabins to see everything they had there. They provide housing for their staff, because they are only open for 4 months. It was a big property, they have a living / computer space for everyone, a dining room with all the hot chocolate, apple cider, and coffee you need.  We were starting to get tired but it wasn't really even dusk yet so we thought we were just weak sauce, but that when we realized it was 10 PM. It just didn't get dark.  This is days 1 and 2, more to come!!