Day 4 starts with free time at the lodge where the fall color abounds. It's a sunny, crisp fall day with promise of more sights to see. We board the train again for the lunch run and enjoy a meal with Allen and Barbara on the train. Our cute tour guide on the train is very knowledgable and keeps us entertained and informed all afternoon.
Our first peek at the peak! We arrive at the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge and get our first pictures of Mt. McKinley. It is awesome! We are blessed with a gorgeous fall afternoon and good visibility. What a glorious day! After a shuttle ride to town, we decide on dinner at the Wildflower Cafe - the owner was a chef for President Bush back in the day. Tables for four are all taken but our bus driver, Ed, invites us to share his table.
Talkeetna is the home of our tour guide, Claudia, and we enjoy hearing about her life in the winter in Alaska. She is a travel agent who works from home, a very small cabin with no running water or electricity. She has a generator to power her computer and chopped wood for heat when she first moved there. She has upgraded to a system with heating oil now but is very resourceful and lives a very simple life. Pays a friend in town for occasional use of a shower and laundry. She volunteers 3 weeks of the year for the Iditarod and has a dog for company and a bike for transportation.
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