Alaska: Denali National Park to Anchorage (Day 14 - 9/9)

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Leaving Denali National Park
Coastal International Inn
The Jacket Fiasco
Exploring Anchorage
Romano's Italian Restaurant

Leaving Denali National Park

Our last morning in the Denali National Park area, we were up early to get things packed back up and checked out of the hotel around 10am. We stopped to pick up some breakfast before heading out of town, and Mark was so kind as to attempt to help a girl who had a horribly flat tire to no avail: She had to call in some buddies with better tools. It just goes to show how sweet my hubby is to be a thousand miles from home and STILL willing to try to help a damsel in distress :)

While he was helping her, I grabbed another Vanilla Chai Latte and a cinnamon roll from my favorite place:

After doing all he could, Mark finally settled on a Subway breakfast sandwich, and then we headed out on our long drive back to Anchorage for our final 2 days in Alaska.

It was a LONG drive that seemed even longer than the way out was, but after a couple short pit-stops, including lunch at McDonald's in Wasilla, we finally made it back to Anchorage and across town to find our hotel for the next 2 evenings: The Coastal International Inn.

Coastal International Inn

It was, as expected, pretty dumpy, but we weren't particular, and didn't want to spend a fortune, as the other hotels in the area were going for around $200/night! It also had an airport shuttle, and we had an early morning flight on the 11th and were dropping off our rental car on the 10th.

The Jacket Fiasco

When we were a good hour out of Denali National Park, we realized that I had put Mark's really nice Columbia jacket in the closet at the last hotel we were staying at. Of course, after freaking out about the idea of an additional 2 hours on the road, we finally found reception and called the hotel and made arrangements for the jacket to make its way on down to Anchorage on a charter bus coming from that location the next day. Or so we thought...but that's a story for Day 15 lol

Exploring Anchorage

After checking in and getting settled for the next couple days, we hopped in the car and headed downtown, as we were planning on going to dinner at the highly-recommended Glacier Brewhouse. It was CRAZY downtown, which we found out it was because they had this huge Taste of Mardi Gras event going on down there (which was $30pp, and by the time we got there, all the food vendors were already gone, so it made no sense), which was why it was so packed downtown.

We were starving at that point, it was almost 8pm, and finding parking was horrific down there, so Mark finally just dropped me off at the door so I could put our names in and went to find a parking spot further away. Unfortunately it was going to be a 90 MINUTE wait, so I called him back right away and told him to come pick me up and we would have to find something else.

Romano's Italian Restaurant

At that point, we were so hungry and tired of driving around, so we finally settled on Romano's Italian Restaurant, which wasn't downtown, nor was it one of the "widely acclaimed" restaurants in Anchorage, but the food was good, service was good, and food came quickly.

We split the Penne Primavera, which was delicious, and just enough to split without leftovers and feeling satisfied.

Alaska: Denali National Park (Days 11-13)

Overview

Day 10 (Sept 6): Check in and explore Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge
Day 11 (Sept 7): Wonder Lake Shuttle Bus (Eielsen Visitor Center, Wonder Lake), dinner at Prospector's
Day 12 (Sept 8): Exploring Denali National Park (Visitor's Center, hike near Saddle River, lunch at Subway, Exploring, Dog Kennels), check in at Denali Bluffs Hotel, dinner at Prospector's
Day 13 (Sept 9): Relaxing, shopping, trail walk, dinner at Cabin Nite Alaska Dinner Theatre

Day 10: Travel Day, Arrive at hotel and rest

After a fun day in Talkeetna and a long drive from Talkeetna to Denali National Park, we were glad to have finally arrived in town!

Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge

We checked in to our hotel - the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, and after having a terrible time finding a parking spot, finally got our things unloaded and brought to our room.

While the lodge looked very impressive, the rooms were less than stellar, including black mold in the shower head - GROSS! We were certainly glad we were only staying 2 nights here!!

We toyed with the idea of going to find some supper elsewhere, but were tired and knew we needed to eat up some of the stuff we brought with us, so we had sandwiches and snacks in our room and got to bed early to get enough rest for the big 11 hour bus shuttle the next day.

Day 11: Wonder Lake Bus Shuttle, Prospectors

On our first full day in Denali National Park, we were up by 7am, had some breakfast in our room and were at Denali National Park for our shuttle bus tour by 8:15am.

Wonder Lake Bus Shuttle

We met at the Wilderness Access Center at 8:15am, checked in, and finally departed on the big, green shuttle bus around 8:45am.

It wasn't too long after we started out that we saw some large moose antlers hiding in the brush!

We got a great view of Mt. McKinley (a.k.a. Denali)!

The fall colors were in full bloom while we were there!

There were most definitely some frameable pictures during this bus tour: The struggle is to pick which ones to blow up on the wall!

We were fascinated to see so much wildlife during the trip, but during the first part of the trip, everything was so far away! We saw these little white specs on a mountain which proved to be Dall sheep.

We got an even closer view of the Dall sheep.

Little did we know we'd get a VERY up-close and personal encounter not too much further down the road!

We also saw 11 Grizzly bears during our trip, even though most of them were VERY far off: So much so that even zoomed in all the way with my 55-200mm lens, this was the best I could get:

We didn't stop too long, though, before we headed further into the beautiful mountains and park.

Eielsen Visitor Center

Before long, we arrived at the Eielsen Visitor Center!

Wonder Lake

There wasn't much of anything too much more spectacular between Eielsen Visitor Center and Wonder Lake, unfortunately. If we had it to do over again, we probably would have skipped the last hour there, and turned around at Eielsen Visitor Center.

It wasn't that Wonder Lake wasn't beautiful, but when you live in Minnesota, there are more beautiful lake vistas than this. Even still, it was a beautiful day to be there!

The water was incredibly clear so many places in Alaska, which was really neat!

Mark was such a sweetheart, and when my feet began swelling from such a lengthy time sitting, he gave me a foot massage. He was also sweet enough to take these terribly unflattering pics lol

We stopped at Wonder Lake for just about 20 minutes before starting the long journey back to the Wilderness Access Center.

We saw a LOT more wildlife on the way back than we anticipated, starting with more Dall sheep, along with a bunch more Grizzlies!

We were a little disappointed with how far away a lot of the wildlife was, but were THRILLED when we found a mama and her cub!

The little guy got a little playful after a while, which was cute :)

I'll admit that by this point in the bus tour, while we were excited to have seen so much wildlife, we were a little disappointed that we hadn't gotten a really good view of a moose on our trip. But just as we were finally getting within about 15 miles of the Wilderness Access Center, we saw this guy!

Over time, he slowly inched his way out of the brush...

...until we got THIS incredible shot!

What was more fascinating was the entire lineup of professional photographers who were lined up alongside the road for similar shots. It was just awe-inspiring! I can't believe how massive this bull was!

We ended up seeing everything we wanted to see on this shuttle, and were definitely glad when we finally arrived back at the Wilderness Access Center.

Prospector's

After a long day on the shuttle bus, we were ready for a good meal out. After walking around a bit and scoping out where to eat, we settled on Prospector's.

The atmosphere was really fun and laid-back, and the decor was pretty cool.

We were VERY impressed with their Alaskan Ale Cheddar Soup! We split a bowl of that along with a salad and their Elk Meatball Sub. It was more than enough food for both of us, but we managed to finish it off so as not to have leftovers.

All-in-all, this was an incredible day! However, it didn't take us long to conk out once we got back to our hotel room. After 11 hours spent on an old school bus, we were wiped, and with full tummies, we were out!

Day 12: Exploring Denali National Park, dinner at Prospector's

After a crazy busy day the previous day, we were determined to make this day a little less hectic. However, we had to get up early to pack our bags, as we were switching hotels. We had some breakfast in our room again, then checked out of Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge.

Denali National Park Visitor's Center

With some time to kill before lunch, we drove to DNP Visitor's Center to explore a bit, and get the scoop on where to go and what to see later in the day.

Subway

By lunch time, we were ready for something light, and settled on Subway, which was oddly the only fast-food type of place around, short of a little coffee shop a few doors down.

Denali National Park

After lunch, we made our way back to Denali National Park to explore the first 15 miles at our own pace, do a little hiking, and check out the dog kennels.

Hiking in Denali

We decided to do a little hiking, so we parked our car alongside the road and put on our wind-resistant gear.

We were getting a little giddy when we saw a TON of moose pellets pretty much everywhere. We thought maybe we'd get a good close-up view of a moose out in the wilderness, but they were all hiding, I guess.

The trees and colors were fascinating!

We never found out why, but we thought it was interesting that the tops of the pine trees were LOADED with pine cones, while the bottoms were completely bare of them. Perhaps because the animals eat them at the lower levels?

Dog Kennels

We decided to stop and check out the dog kennels, since we didn't really have much of a plan, and we could hear the little guys barking off in the distance.

The dogs were beautiful! Of course, I have had a love affair with Alaskan huskies ever since seeing The Proposal and the adorable little white husky pup on there :)

They even had these adorable puppies there too! I SO wanted to go pick one up and take it home with me :)

The ones that were most fascinating to me, though, were the pure white ones.

Leaving the Park

On our way out of the park the previous day, the driver said the most incredible view was along this stretch where the buses weren't allowed to stop, so we made a point to take in the beautiful view via car, which was allowed to stop :)

Of course, the pictures don't even remotely do the view justice.

We found it interesting that they had almost entirely pine trees and yellow-leaved Birch trees in the park (and all around the state). We much prefer our more colorful autumn colors in Minnesota, but it was still beautiful!

What we don't have in Minnesota, however, are views like this:

Denali Bluffs Hotel

After our less-than-stellar experience at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, we were thrilled to find that the Denali Bluffs Hotel was MUCH more inviting, and our room was tenfold nicer.

Sunset Drive

After checking in and relaxing for a while, we decided to take a sunset drive through the moose country once again (i.e. miles 5-15 of Denali Nat'l Park) in hopes to see another bull, but we came up empty handed as far as wildlife, aside from a porcupine that scurried off into the bushes quickly. We DID, however, capture this beautiful sunset!

We relaxed for a while before deciding that we couldn't stay away from that cheddar ale soup at Prospector's, so we made our way back there for dinner.

Prospector's (Part Deux)

As you can tell, we were fond of Prospector's after the prior evening, so we returned for another meal.

We thought it was funny how they put the water in wine bottles to serve it.

We started with another shared bowl of their Alaskan Ale Cheddar Soup and decided this time to go with the Prospector 13" pizza for the main course.

It was obviously horrible ;)

Day 13: Shopping, resting and Cabin Nite Dinner Theatre

On our last day in Denali National Park, we decided to rest up, do a little shopping, and just relax for the day.

Shopping in Denali National Park

I hadn't taken any pictures up until this point, but it was comical to see the trees around the northern part of Alaska with these enormous growths on them. Apparently they are called "burls", and they're common in Alaska on Spruce and Birch trees. They are caused by either wildlife or bad weather where trees planted too close together.

I splurged on two of the days we were there on vanilla chai lattes at this place, and they were THE best I believe I've ever had!

The rest of the afternoon, we bummed around at the hotel, catching up on a little TV, resting, catching up on facebook and emails and such, and just being bums for the most part. A couple hours before our dinner theatre, we went to the lounge to catch the first in-season football game between the Packers and the Saints.

Trail Walking

We went for a little walk through some trails for a bit before heading to dinner, just to get some exercise on this fairly sedentary day.

Cabin Nite Dinner Theatre

Our last night in Denali National Park, we decided to take advantage of a 2-for-1 ticket to the Cabin Nite Dinner Theatre. We had such a blast!

The Food
The food was delicious, and all-you-can-eat! It was served family-style, and they encouraged you to start eating as soon as you sat down.

The main entrees were ribs and salmon (your choice, or both, whichever), and both were delicious!

The Entertainment
The show was a hoot, and we thoroughly enjoyed it. They had a little audience participation, and even recognized those of us in the audience who were celebrating special events (i.e. our Anniversary in a couple weeks). They did a great job, even if it was a little cheesy at times :)

The Dessert
During the show, they served a DELICIOUS mixed berry cobbler with real whipped cream. It was so delicious we had two servings! lol

We called it an early night after the show, knowing the next day would be a long one on the road, and that we'd need time to pack in the morning.

All-in-all, we had a wonderful time in the Denali National Park area. The colors were beautiful, the wildlife were active, and we enjoyed the small town feel in the wilderness :)