After sitting (and sleeping) overnight at the dock in Whittier we disembarked the ship early this morning and boarded a bus to the Denali Princess Lodge at the Denali State Park. To leave Whittier we had to pass through a large tunnel. This is a one lane tunnel that is shared by both trains and motor vehicles.

After clearing the tunnel it was a very scenic drive between Whittier and Anchorage. Once we reached Anchorage the driver took a quick tour through downtown, where he pointed out several places of interest; this will come in handy when we visit a few days from today. The bus also stopped at the Alaska Veterans Memorial so everyone could stretch their legs.

Once we arrived at the lodge and put our stuff into our room, we met Frank and Tom for dinner at our first land-based excursion: the Music of Denali Dinner Theater. This turned out to be a major bust; a horrible dinner and badly sung show tunes. We skipped out partway through and got some ice cream at the small strip shopping center across from the lodge.

A little after midnight (probably close to 1 AM) I looked out the window to see how bright it was. It was nearly as bright out as when we first arrived at the lodge. No wonder the room had heavy curtains and blinds.