Wending Our Way to Whittier

Our train narrator, Ingrid, tossed out all sorts of little factoids during the several hour long ride to meet our cruise ship in Whittier but you could tell that folks were getting a little tired of riding as we neared our destination. After all, we had ridden a large bus for two nine plus hour days, then ridden a school bus for 6 plus hours into Denali National Park and now we had spent nine hours on the train. Granted, we saw Beluga Whales in Turnagain Arm (sorry the photo isn't so good but the white knobby-headed Belugas don't breach like the big whales but swim and hunt more like dolphins, only surfacing briefly as they chased the salmon up the inlet. The Beluga is that white spot in the lower left hand corner.
We saw spruce trees that had been killed by the tsunami that was caused by the earthquake on 1964. Being immersed in sea salt water killed them.Then came the one mile long tunnel through Begich Peak and the much longer, much darker two and a half mile long Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel. One traffic lane wide, the tunnel is shared by automotive and train traffic alike which creates some long traffic jams when a train comes through.
Finally we arrived in Whittier. And there was our ship, the Island Princess. It took us a long time to finally board as we had to go through security to get on the ship and then receive our ID/room cards and be processed but finally we were onboard the ship. After the lifeboat drill had been suffered through, we were free to explore the ship. But that's tomorrow's post.