Alaska--Denali National Park
We arrived in Anchorage around noon on the 7th. The airline "lost" my luggage which led to all sorts of delays right at the start of our trip, so we missed out on an opportunity to see Anchorage-- the largest city in Alaska. We spent the afternoon shopping at the local mall because the airline folks could not tell us whether or not they would find the bag. Since we had three consecutive days of travel into remote parts ahead of us, we had no choice but to buy back-up clothing, boots, socks, underwear, a suitcase--literally everything was in my luggage! The last place any of us wanted to be was at a shopping mall on our first day of vacation, however, Ethan was a trooper about it. It was not until 10:30 p.m. that we finally got a call from the airline letting me know that my luggage had arrived. By then it was too late to return anything, so I had to carry all these newly-purchased items that I did not even want!
We spent our first day at McKinley Princess Lodge which is in a very remote area of Alaska known as Trapper Creek. The closest well-known town is Talkeetna which is famous for its Wilderness Woman contest where women are supposedly competing for bachelor men. Apparently, men in Talkeetna long for a woman and a truck-- so long as both work. In the Wilderness Woman contest, the first round consists of a 100-yard dash carrying empty buckets to a ‘creek’, and the women return the same distance with full buckets. If any water is spilled, time is added. In the second round, women are asked to prepare a sandwich and open a beer for a lounging bachelor, and then head out into the ‘woods’. The five finalists must put on snowshoes, and move from field to stream while shooting a latex ptarmigan, sawing a small piece off of a birch round, snagging a salmon, and evading a lonely moose (all animals are fake). Round three requires each woman to fill a sled with split wood, then tow it by snow machine and feed the wood into a bonfire, around which bachelors tell lousy stories. It is said in Alaska that the odds of finding a man is good, but the goods may be odd. And speaking of ptarmigans, there is a town in Alaska named "Chicken" Alaska. Around 1902 townsfolk wanted to name the town Ptarmigan, but no one could agree about how to spell it, so they settled on naming the town "Chicken".
After a night at McKinley Lodge, we traveled to Denali National Park and Preserve. With over six million acres contained within its boundaries, Denali NP is truly larger than human kind. The size and openness is overwhelming. This is not the kind of park that you "do". It was truly an experience, and I wish we had been able to spend more time here. We took a 5-hour guided tour and barely scratched the surface. We have never seen mountains and land so vast and large.
With our time in Denali being so limited, the highlight of our Denali experience was that I made arrangements for Ethan to earn and get sworn in as a Junior Ranger of Denali National Park. Racing to the Visitor Center once we arrived in the area, I talked to a Park Ranger who provided us the workbook and advised us that there was a remote stop where Rangers could hop on the bus and swear Ethan in. It was really exciting for (me mostly) Ethan, when after a couple hours in the park, the tour bus driver stopped the bus at a remote Ranger outpost and a Ranger boarded the bus and asked for the "new Junior Ranger". Of course, he was very bashful about it. The Denali badge he earned is a commemorative badge honoring the 100 year birthday of Denali, and instead of the usual plastic, it is made out of wood. As the Ranger explained, 2017 is the only year Junior Rangers can get the wooden badge. It was really cool, and I was relieved to be able to arrange this for him! It seemed that others on the bus enjoyed it, too, because more than once during the rest of the trip, a few people pointed out "the Denali Junior Ranger".
After a night in Denali NP, we boarded the Alaskan RR train early the next morning. The train was truly an experience. Every passenger had the privilege of sitting in coaches with glass dome roofs. Dining cars were below us, and there was easy access to viewing platforms at the back of each car. Of course, when we went over the 296 foot bridge which goes over Hurricane Gulch, we were standing outside so we could look straight down!
