June 15

Up around 7, Lana and I went for a walk, down to the river that wrapped around the hotel.

After our walk, I checked to see about getting luggage to the depot.  Turns out we were supposed to have been given luggage tags when we checked in, and have the bags out for pickup by now.  We had not been given the tags or told that, but later I read it in some of the stuff we were given.  Anyway, I ran to the desk and got the tags.  We had a good hot expensive breakfast and caught the shuttle to the visitor center.  They have an excellent film that they show there called Heartbeats of Denali.  We had watched it twice last year, and really wanted Mom to see it.  No luck, the projector bulb had blown and it would be tomorrow before the new one came in.  I guess they don’t keep a spare.  Not all was lost; we were able to pick up a copy on DVD at the bookstore.  Then we walked down to the depot about 11:15 to check in.

The train was on time, and we had an uneventful ride to Anchorage.  Saw a few moose.  As we passed a trackside cafe, I noticed a couple of BMW GS riders taking a break and commented to Lana.  The guy ahead of us (who was reading a copy of Cycle News) overheard me and asked, “Do you ride?”  He raced 600 class bikes in California, and was traveling with his wife and almost-two-year-old. 

We got some sprinkles of rain on the trip.  We ate dinner on the train, and the food was excellent.  Got to Anchorage about 30 minutes late, gathered our luggage, caught a cab, and found Great Alaskan Holidays, where our rental RV was waiting in the lot.  They were already closed, but I had arraigned for them to leave us a key, us to spend the night in their lot, and hit the road the next morning.  We tried to watch the DVD from Denali but the DVD player was acting up.  This, by the way, was the only trouble we had with the RV the whole trip.

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