Talkeetna to Anchorage... eventually

Today we checked out of the Princess Lodge. actually, not today, but two days ago, but since I don't remember what day, I am going to write it in present tense. Well, let me think about this... today is Saturday...Thursday, I think?

Ok, so Thursday, we checked out of the lodge. We went down to the main part of the lodge and took a nature walk with the ranger, which was way cool.

Donna and Gary had to return the rental car to Anchorage, so Gary decided to drive it back with all of our luggage while the rest of us took the train. We took the 1:30 shuttle into Talkeetna and ate lunch (we went to the pizza place, I can;t remember the exact name, and shared a hummus platter and a margharetti pizza) and then we dutifully headed down to the train station to get there at 4:15, ready for the train that would arrive at 4:40... having been assured that the train was indeed on time. (although it had been late for the past 4 days becasue of the floods.) Honestly, we didin;t mind that it was late - we were irritated about the lack of communication. We coule have spent time shopping in Talkeetna or whatever. Instead of sitting on a bench at the station for two hours.

The train arrived at 6:40... well,, at least we knew Gary was safely in Anchorage - he called us while we were waiting!

The train was a bit confusing because our names weren't printed on the front page of the manifest for the car we were supposed to be in. As a matter of fact, the guy was going to take us all the way to the Alaska railroad cars if I hadn't glanced at the manifest and saw our names. We think the mix up occurred because the train car we were supposed to be on wasn't on the train, (we were quite possibly the only people scheduled to be on it) and so we were actually getting put with another group.

It all worked out. We had a good dinner on the train - Grant and mom had a pork loin dinner with apples and sweet potatoes, Donna had chicken, Bobby had Halibut, I think, and I had a shrimp stir-fry.

The tour guide on this train was really good - he was from Alaska and he was very nice and a great story teller, so we heard all sorts of interesting things on our way.

We arrived in Anchorage at 10:00 ish, and Gary met us in the rental car. We got to our hotel and settled in quickly, because we had to catch the 6:45 train the next morning.