Travel Day: Fairbanks to Denali

We left Fairbanks on Tuesday & traveled 4 hours south to Denali on the Alaska Railroad.

 Our conductor (the Snickers bar is a whole other blog I plan to write someday).

 Old telegraph poles dotted the landscape. They are now on the National Register of Historic Things (didn't know that was a thing) and cannot be removed.

 Alaskan sense of humor...

 Our first snow-capped mountains!!!

 We were told we could see Denali on a clear day.

 Sadly, it was not a clear day.

 It was beautiful nonetheless.

We were met at the train station by a hotel shuttle, handed our room keys & taken right to our room. Nice! We stayed at the Denali Bluffs Hotel. Our room had a nice view from the balcony, but there was a sister property, the Grande Denali Lodge, that was at the top of the mountain, so we took the free shuttle up to the top.

 

 The GM had quite the Alaskan sense of humor.

The amazing panoramic view from the top of the mountain.

We took the shuttle into town & found a cute little village full of souvenir shops & eclectic restaurants. We grabbed "Bear"itos at Black Bear Coffee House, a place famous for serving coffee from beans roasted in Alaska. Funny story - one of our shuttle drivers was bragging about how amazing the Alaskan coffee was. She ranted about how it's grown, roasted & everything right there in Alaska. Being a coffee nut, I knew there was no possible way coffee could get enough of a growing season in Alaska, so I asked about the "grown in Alaska" part. Oh, but she was ever adamant it was definitely grown there. Poor thing. Haha!

With no scheduled activities today, we took it easy after lunch & checked out the shops.

My favorite shirt with more Alaskan humor.

We had dinner that night at the hotel's Mountaineer Grill & Bar. I was still stuffed from my huge "Bear"ito, so only had a salad. Buzz scoffed that I should throw the salad in the yard then kill & eat what comes to eat it. That said, he had buffalo chili & reindeer sausage. Both were tasty!