Alaska, Part 5: Sitka, Anchorage and the Wilderness Train (July 18–20)

Here we reach the end of our voyage—but not the end of our trip.

We spent a delightful day in Sitka at the end of our voyage, even if it did mark the beginning of three days of cloudy, misty, rainy weather. Sitka is kind of a cross between a mountain town and a funky city like Portland. It had fish bike racks all through town:

This is the view from the library:

As you can see, it's really green because it's the middle of summer and because it rains a lot. But that means there are also a lot of flowers, which I love. These peonies were everywhere:

Among the most popular attractions in Sitka (besides Sweet Sisters Caramels) is St. Michael's Cathedral. You'll have to imagine what it looks like outside because my photographer was not with me and I didn't think to take a picture from the outside. But I took a lot of the inside, and this is my favorite:

And what would an Alaska city be without a totem pole?

As we were walking through town (yes, I went to a yarn store in Sitka—do you wanna make something of it?), I saw a stuffed bear outside of a pharmacy, and the first thing I thought of was how Vic would make me pose with this bear, so I had Mary take that picture:

Vintage Victor R. Love pose

After Sitka, it was off to Anchorage. We arrived there in the morning, but our train to Fairbanks didn't leave until the next day. One of our guides on the ship, Christina, said we should visit the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Anchorage, so that's exactly what we did with our extra day! We drove down the Seward Highway, through the Chugach National Forest, with the Turnagin Arm on the right side. This drive, even through the misty rain and with cloudy skies, was breathtaking. I couldn't stop staring at how beautiful it was. This is just one of the gorgeous pictures I took:

The wildlife center was fun but, again, rainy and cold. Still, I saw moose, elk, musk ox, reindeer and regular deer. Also a bear, but I only took videos of her, so no pictures below.

 The next day, it was off to Fairbanks via the Wilderness Train!

We were sitting in the domed area at the top, but where you see windows in the white section of the picture above, that's the dining area. Delicious food, generous portions. 😀 Anyway, this is us in the dome car:

It was cloudy and rainy almost the whole way, but the sun did show itself at the end of the day. I took lots of scenic pictures of the trees and mountains around us and spent a fair amount of time standing on the platform between the cars breathing in that cool Alaska air which made my lingering hacking cough go away for short periods of time.

See those little white specks on the water? Swans.

It was a no-stress way to get to our final(?) stop: Fairbanks.