Next Stop: Anchorage

Here we are at the Alaska Railroad again. This time to go 223 miles south. Our new seats were in the first dome car at the very front. I thought,"Oh, great view! I'll see everything as the train approaches!" Wrong again folks. This time it was the weather that messed me up. As you can see from my first photo, we started out pretty good...but then the rain started coming and all you could see out the front was rain drops. Quite a change from yesterday's glorious sunshine!

 We also had a number of people in our car who were very loud, and very obnoxious. They were the kind of people that give Americans a bad name. Unfortunately we were stuck with them for 223 miles - about 7 1/2 hours. Oh well, you can't always choose your train neighbors. The train ride itself was fairly uneventful. The fog, clouds, and rain managed to sock everything in so we couldn't even tell we were traveling through mountains. Without much scenery, and desperately trying to ignore the people directly behind us, snoozing seemed to me to be the only way, (apart from eating).

Ok, there were some nice shots - especially with the fall colors, and also with the fog. But we couldn't help thinking about those poor people taking the backcountry tour today. No chance of seeing the great mountain, or most of the other mountains either! It made us feel that much luckier today.

We went by a few interesting places. Many of these places had to do with gold mining. Some, like Wasilla, are places of interest in themselves. Wasilla is the headquarters of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. Yes, you could see some of the mushers' dogs through the woods, with their doghouses and chains. There was also Matanuska which is a river whose name is native for "fire". It is named that because the waters look like they are boiling from heat. I took a picture but it didn't quite turn out. The waters, which are glacial melt, do indeed look like they're at a simmer in a cook pot. There were wildlife areas where we saw several pairs of Trumpeter Swans. One pair even had a large offspring with them. No pics, it's very difficult to see something, turn your camera on, aim, focus and shoot before the train takes you out of the shot. One last picture is from the top of the bridge at Hurricane Gulch. The bridge spans 918 ft and is 296 feet above Susitna River. Dinner on the train, into Anchorage at 8:00 and bed . Tomorrow is a very full day going to see Prince William Sound and then on a ferry bound for Juneau.