We were back on land in Alaska. Now it was time for our adventure after the cruise! But first, let’s get off the ship.
Near the end of August, our Holland America Alaska cruise ship dropped us in Seward, Alaska where we boarded a bus for Denali National Park. I have to say that the level of planning, coordination and communication to get 2000 passengers off a ship and on their way to cities, trains, airports, buses and who knows what else must be daunting.
The ship leveraged published schedules, public meetings, and information packets and luggage tags delivered to our room. Granted, they have years of experience doing this, but to pull that off was impressive for us. In a few short hours, everyone was off the ship and on their way.
Seward is situated on Alaska’s southern coast, on Resurrection Bay, a fjord of the Gulf of Alaska. This puts it approximately 120 miles by road from Alaska’s largest city, Anchorage, and nearly 1,300 miles from the closest point in the contiguous United States at Cape Flattery, Washington.
I looked at a map and thought, okay, Seward to Denali. Well, it doesn’t look that far… Then I looked at the scale on the map. Whoa! Alaska is huge. We had a full day drive in a bus, a comfortable bus, but still, a full day on a bus. On the other hand, it was a beautiful trip.
Leaving the seaport of Seward early in the morning, the sun was still struggling up into the sky and I hadn’t had enough coffee. The first portion of the trip took us through the mountains of the Kenai Peninsula, but I have to admit that I slept for much of that. By the time we’d passed Anchorage, I was awake and we could see the significant mountains ahead of us, pale blue smudges on the horizon. As we continued north towards Denali, the mountains shrunk in distance and grew in size.
Our first rest stop was outside Wasilla, Alaska. I once heard that that from here, on a clear day, you can see Russia from your front porch. I guess it was a bit too cloudy that day…. We did, however, see the Iditarod Museum in Wasilla. There was a dogsled demonstration, albeit on wheels because, well, it was summer and no snow. A walk through the museum dedicated to Alaska’s famous annual dogsled race seemed a requirement so in we went. There’s a lot of memorabilia from past races and lots of color here. This is a spot that that I’d highly recommend you stop and spend 30-45 minutes.
The trip continued north on Hwy 1, through the broad Susitna Valley south of the Alaska Range. Both to the east and west we could see the foothills, but being from the lower 48, we called them mountains. A couple of times we saw Denali peek out from behind the clouds and the ‘foothills’ designation started to make sense. This is one of the reasons we selected the Holland America Alaska cruies, because the land protion takes us right inside of the beautiful State of Alasks.
It was late in the afternoon when we got to Holland America’s comfortable resort, just outside the park. After some exploring and dinner, we settled in there for the night. Tomorrow was a full day and we were reagy to continue the on-shore adventure after the cruise.
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