Talkeetna #2

Another fun day today! We all had trouble getting to sleep last night with the midnight sun and we slept in a bit this morning. After breakfast, we took a hike around the hotel property. It was a beautiful morning and Denali / Mt. McKinley was in full view. It took us about 45 minutes to hike the loop and we enjoyed the walk –until the last ten minutes. Somehow, the mosquitos found us toward the end and followed us back to the hotel. Those little suckers can be quite annoying!

When we got back to the hotel, the tour van was waiting to give us a ride to our train / river rafting adventure. After grabbing some bug spray, we jumped in the van and headed out. The van took us through “downtown” Talkeetna (don’t blink, or you might miss it!) to the train station where we signed the usual waivers and received our life jackets and rubber boots. After a short wait, we got on board and pulled out of the station for the short ride to our drop off point.

When the train stopped, we got out…in the middle of nowhere. The guides unloaded the rafts, coolers, and other gear and the train pulled away, leaving us standing around beside the tracks. The guides humped all the gear about 100 yards down to the river’s edge and inflated the rafts while we milled around near the tracks (they said we’d be safer from the mosquitos up there).

Finally, they called us down to get in. I’m glad they gave us the boots because the water was about 40 degrees –brrr! We were able to step into the rafts without getting wet and we were off. Our guide was a nice guy and was really great with the kids. He listened patiently and laughed while Brandon and Justin exhausted their repertoire of jokes and stories. The sun went in behind the clouds for a while and the wind picked up, so we were a bit chilly for a while.

After about an hour, we stopped for lunch. Our guide paddled us over to a rocky sandbar in the river and we pulled the raft up onto the beach. We enjoyed a great lunch and stunning views there in the middle of the river. After lunch, we rafted for another hour or so and ended up back near the train station in Talkeetna.

After a short van ride, we were back at the hotel with just enough time to shower and change before our “guests” arrived. You may recall we met some folks during our tour through Central American in April 2007 that lived in Alaska: Howard & Ann Nugent. They live in Wasilla, which is just about 20 minutes (by small plane) South of Talkeetna. They flew in to have dinner with us at the lodge. It was great to see them both again!

After dinner, we walked out to the back lawn behind the hotel, found a spot in the shade, and enjoyed the view of Denali while the kids played on the grassy hill. Brandon would run really fast and slide down the whole hill on his belly superman-style. His white shirt is mostly green with grass-stains now, but they had a good time.Tomorrow, we are scheduled to take a sightseeing flight around Denali, including a glacier landing (on skis). I hope the weather is nice.