The Boardwalk along the river at our hotel gave us fabulous views of mountains and the river. We didn’t have time to take too long of a walk. We had a bus to take to the Nenana River Jet Boat Ride. When we arrived at the river there were trappers cabins and we heard all about trapping, had hot cocoa and a sweet sugar topped bread. We panned for gold again and then we went out and got in the boat. As with most of the Alaskan rivers we saw there were many sand bars as we turned corner after corner. Each bend in the river brought more exciting views. The driver seemed to enjoy going fast on the curves and the boat skimmed across the water like a water ski. The river was only three feet deep and was cloudy with glacial melt. There were no salmon here in this river a thousand miles from the sea. The clouds started to lift and by the end of the ride we had blue sky and blue water in our photos.
We arrived back at the hotel just in time to board the bus that took us to the train for Talkeetna. We rode in a Princess Line train car with a glass domed roof. The dining car was below and our group took turns going below for a delicious lunch. The ride lasted several hours and we took many photos through the window. Taking photos through the window was a challenge because of reflections but we managed to get some very good scenic shots anyway.
By the time we arrived at the hotel we had a late supper and walked around the deck but McKinley Mountain was already tucked into a blanket of clouds for the night. By midnight there was darkness. It wasn’t completely dark but much more so than it was in Fairbanks. I took a photo which shows an almost dark night.
You can see a selection of the photos I took at my photostream on Flickr.
To see all the photos for this day: Look up alicehuntstudio on Flickr or try the link below.
