What Does A Person Need With 189 Rooms?

 

It's a castle day today! Fun Fact: Some of the castles we toured all started with the word Dun. Dun (pronounced doon) means fort. Dunrobin (translates to Robin's Fort) is on the schedule for today.

Believe It Or Not

 

We are on an epic adventure. We are going hunting after one of the most notorious monsters in the world. A monster which has often been scoffed at and many times called a hoax even though there have been documented sightings since the 6^th century.  

The Many Uses of Grass

 

When you travel on a bus tour, one of the most important things on the tour is where do you sit on the bus. Everybody has their favorite place, their favorite side. Heaven forbid that anybody encroaches on your spot. Gate 1 came up with an equitable solution – assigned seats. After we found our seat on the first day, we were told that every day, they would move your seat three seats forward. Eventually, during the tour, you would sit on each side and also toward the front, toward the back. Some days my seat was wonderful, some days not so much but it was fair. 

A Slow Start

Following my long travel day and my running around town, I was exhausted and decided that I needed to take a very, very short nap. Two hours later, I woke up at 6:15, realizing I was late for the very first Gate 1 Tour Group Orientation at 6pm. Rushing down to the orientation, I found everybody sitting down, listening with rapt attention to our tour guide, Phil. I must admit, it was not quite the introduction that I wanted to make with my fellow travelers. Ok, I was a tad bit embarrassed. All I could say was sorry and, in my head, oh well. 

Adventure Before Dementia!

 

A life-long bucket list item for me has been to travel first class overseas, on a plane where the first class seats recline into a bed. My children told me to go for it and when I said, but yes, that would be spending your inheritance, they just laughed. So... I'm going for it.  Adventure Before Dementia – my new motto. 

The Grand Finale

 

Today is a big day – we are heading to Denali National Park, home to Denali – the highest mountain in all of North America and the third tallest mountain in the world. Denali was formally known as Mt. McKinley but the name was changed to Denali, not too long ago in 2015. Spoiler alert: We never saw the mountain, it was an overcast day, but there is so much more to Denali than the mountain.

Blue Is My Favorite Color

It's back on the train and heading out for today's adventure. Up to this point, whenever we boarded the train, we were in Gold Star class with those big, beautiful windows and the open bar. For today, we are in Adventure Class, more of the budget variety. The reason is that we were on a different set of trains that were taking us off in a different direction than the Gold Star trains go. We are going out into the wild to animals (caged) and the Spencer Glacier Whistle Stop.