May 21, 2022 - Anchorage
We tested at the Fairmont WatefrWaterfrontont and then flew first class on Air Canada to Anchorage. We had clear skies and incredible views. It was so cool to see Ketchikan and Glacier Bay National Park from the air.
We stayed at the Four Points Sheraton. We visited the Tent City Taphouse.
I made reservations for a return visit to the Glacier Brewhouse. We had the appetizer trio with a smoked salmon dip, great fried calamari, and sauteed shrimp. Glenn tried the chowder and we had BLT salads with smoked salmon for dinner. A great first afternoon in Anchorage.
May 22, 2022 - Anchorage
I worked in the morning. Around noon, we made our to way over the Captain Cook check-in check in for our cruise tour. Our room wasn't ready so we checked our bags and headed to F Street Station. After a little wake, we got seats at the bar. We had oysters.
I had the halibut fish and chips. They were terrific. We had a little more time before our brewery tour so we visited Humpy's Alehouse. We got lucky with a seat on the outdoor patio.
We went our Big Swig brewery guide outside the visitor's center. It was only two couples. We had a wonderful time visiting King Street brewery.
We spent about an hour and a half with one of the brewers. I learned so much about malt and the chemistry of beer. My favorite was the Imperial IPA
Then, we went to Midnight Sun to sample more beers. We got to head down to the brewhouse and sample from the brewer's tap.
My favorites were Girls Club – a beer brewed for International Women’s Day by the female brewers on the team, and Leche Libra – an horchata stout.
Last spot was Turnagain Brewing where I met the most fascinating person ever. The brewery is owned and operated by a couple. The husband is a surgeon for the Native American Health Services. He also loves sour beers and dedicated half his brewery to sours. He even invented an adaptation to make a sour beer starter.
Oh And he's in a band. The beers were great.
After the tour, we headed to 49st State Brewing. The food and the beer weren't great. The SMok was interesting and a very dark smokey beer. I ordered the pulled pork – it was really salty. Glenn got the bison meatloaf and it was just okay. We called it an early night since our bags had to out ready to be picked up at 6:00 am this morning.
May 22, 2022 - Mt McKinley Wilderness Lodge
The day started early. Bags had to be available for pick up at 6:00 am so we were up at 5:00 am. The bellman did come at 6:20 am so it’s a good thing we got up early. We had to meet the bus at 8:15 am. Glenn ran down to the coffee shop for breakfast sandwiches and coffee.
We were very impressed with how organized the tour is so far. We transferred to the train station and boarded the 2nd level Dome car. We had breakfast included so shortly after departure we headed downstairs to the dining car.
It was great being low because we saw a black bear as we were leaving Anchorage. Breakfast was reindeer sausage burritos and grilled bagels with salmon spread. Very good. We headed back upstairs. We had a beautiful day. We saw three moose in a field. The narration could have been a bit better, but I think it was everyone on the train’s 2nd or 3rd day of work. We had an incredible view of Mount Denali.
We arrived in Talkeetna. Since we have already been to Talkeetna – we stayed 3 nights in 2015 – we decided to head to the Lodge. It was about an hour’s drive. The bus driver sounded exactly like the Christ Pratt character in Parks and Recreation. We had great views at the lodge.
Our room was ready with our luggage already in the room. We took a 2:30 pm Nature Walk with a State Park Ranger around the lodge.
The trails were still closed due to snow so she pointed out different plants. We had an afternoon cocktail and then went to a talk with a Denali Climber.
He is part of the Denali Rescue Volunteer organization and spends a couple of weeks on the mountain each year as part of a volunteer squad. It was fascinating. After the talk, it was time for dinner. We got a great window table. We had the chili and King Salmon. I finally ordered right. YAY! It was really good. Glenn had a berry crumble for dessert and I had a mousse cake. Very good. We headed to the outdoor fire pit area after dinner. It started to sprinkle so we just headed back to the room. A great day.
May 23, 2022 Denali Wilderness Lodge
Yesterday, we got to sleep in a little. The bus left at 9:30 am. We had great weather for the bus ride to Denali National Park. We even saw a moose on the side of the road. Our room was nice. We headed across the street to Black Bear Cafe for lunch. We had delicious BLT sandwiches and tomato soup. We decided against going on an ATV excursion since the snow hasn't fully melted. Denali had twice the amount of snow this winter.
We walked down to McKinley Chalet. The Karsten's pub had cool outdoor tables with fire pits.
We tried some beers and had some delicious brussel sprouts. We then headed to Prospector's Pizzeria to try more beer.
The bar has 49 taps. Dinner was back at the Princess King Salmon. I had coconut crusted halibut and the salmon. Both were very good. We decided to call it an early day since we had an early morning today. Glenn did a load of laundry.
May 23, 2022 Denal National Park
Our Denali Natural History tour left at 6:30 am. Becky was a good guide. We saw some birds and very far away caribou and moose. We met Ethan from a local tribe. It was a good scenic bus ride.
We got back around 10:45 am and took a nap. Lunch was at Lynx pizza. Then, we just hung out by the fire enjoying the good weather. Dinner was King Salmon again. Again, very good. We hung out a little longer by the fire and headed to bed.
May 24, 2022 Copper River Wilderness Lodge
Today was our long bus ride day. We started in Denali at 7:15 am. We headed towards Fairbanks. We got to stop at Santa Claus House in the North Pole for a bathroom break.
We headed down to Delta Junction. We ate at a local hamburger place. It was really good.
The drive was beautiful. We hit some road construction so the drive took about 10 hours. People were getting antsy.
The road construction meant 3 buses all showed up at once. It was a bit chaotic at the Copper River Princess Lodge. We grabbed a beer and headed to the patio to read all the info. The weather was terrific again.
We got our COVID tests. We are negative. Yay! Dinner was good. We hung out by the fire with some people from our tour.
May 25, 2022 UTV Tour and Wrangell St Elias National Park
Yesterday was our outside day. We started at 9 am with an all-terrain vehicle ride. We were so lucky to get our own vehicle. Glenn drove. We had amazing views. We drove through land owned by the Native American corporation.
After the tour, we took the resort shuttle to the visitor center of Wrangell - St Elias. They had a small exhibit center, a movie, and a couple short trails.
We came back to the resort for lunch and then did a 1.5 mile hike around the resort. We had a nice cocktail hour enjoying the view. Dinner was very good again.
We went up to bed early because our luggage had to be out at 10 pm.
May 26, 2022, Valdez
We left the Copper River Princess Wilderness Lodge around 7:30 am for the drive to Valdez. Our group of 25 shrunk to 15 due to positive COVID tests. Glenn won a candy bar for the worst drawn moose in our drawing contest yesterday. Parker, our bus driver, said it looked like a hot dog with legs.
The drive to Valdez was gorgeous. We saw a baby bear scamper across the road. We passed waterfalls and even stopped at one for a picture. Mike - one of our tour mates - had to rescue a woman who got stuck trying to stick her head in the run-off to drink the water. That was exciting.
We boarded our boat to Whittier. We thought it'd be more of a sightseeing ytourour, but it was more like a ferry between the two ports. Glenn and I enjoyed having the whole back deck to ourselves for most of the ride.
Embarkation was easy. The boat docked right next to the building for check-in. It took about 30 minutes to process everyone from our boat. We were the last in line. We had lunch at the buffet. I worked for about 4 hours. Glenn took a tour of the ship. We had pre-dinner cocktails at the Platinum happy hour. We had dinner in the dining room. We were impressed with the menu. It was different than Ruby Princess and had several Alaska dishes.
After dinner, we got a window seat at Vines. It's set up with the bar along the side where the big table was on the Ruby. This means they have several tables with window views. We watched Sailaway and then headed to the 9:30 pm show with Carlos Oscar. He was still funny and it was basically the same show. I could tell a difference enough because our crowd was much smaller and didn't laugh as much.
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