Denali!

We are on the road to Denali and the sun is shining and we are optimistic about our odds of actually seeing the mountain. It is common knowledge that to see Mount Denali in its entirety is somewhat of a rare event. The stories we hear is that only 35% of the people who come to the park get to see a part of the mountain and that less than 10% of them get to see it from base to peak. Hopefully as we get closer, we get a good look. Finally, we get close enough to see something and it is GREAT!! The entire mountain is in clear view!

While we were pulled off the highway to look at the mountain Edgar decide to get up in the driver’s seat of the RV and he looked so serious when I shot this photo. I swear he thinks he can drive.

We arrived at our next RV park, get set up and prepare for the next day, which is a bus tour into Denali Park. Hopefully the sun is still shining tomorrow when we are in the park. Will we be even luckier and see the mountain two days in a row? I am not sure that the odds are in our favor, but we will have to wait and see.

The bus came and took us to the park where we boarded other busses and rode in as far as we were allowed and much to our amazement the skies are blue and clear and there in front of us is Mount Denali a second time! Although it is August, they had a small snowstorm that left the area around the mountain snow covered and really pretty. Pictured is what we got see on day two. According to locals we all should go out and buy lottery tickets.

While touring the park we stopped at what once had been a ranger station but now it is just for visitor education. Of course, you all know that I could not resist the urge to play around with the exhibit. This set of moose antlers was not very big and to me they weighed a ton! I guess that there are some really big necks on the ones with really big racks.

My notes say that this photo is a sunrise, but with the sun still coming up before 4:00 AM I am not sure. It is possible that I was on the west side of a really big mountain, and it took some time to finally get to me anyway this was probably one of the prettiest sunrise or sunset I saw.

On another day in Denali Judy and I took a Jeep Tour out into the boondocks. It was a pretty cool day and it wasn’t the brightest day we have seen but to get to drive a jeep on roads that we really didn’t want to take our Explorer on it was going to be a fantastic day. The first few miles were on paved highway but then we turned onto the dirt road and off we went. The scenery was so vast I felt that it was futile to take pictures, but I did. I am guessing that the mountains in the background were over 50 to 75 miles away. On one stop the tour guides took us out into the roadside tundra and it was very unique to walk on! It was spongy and difficult to walk on because with each step you felt that you were sinking into it. While we were out there the guide pointed out some wild blueberry bushes and when we looked around, they were everywhere. The bushes were rather small and low to the ground and the fruit was not very big, but when you picked a handful and popped them into your mouth the reward was worth the effort. Had I been on my own I am certain that enough to put on my breakfast cereal for a few days would have found their way back to the RV.

While driving around the village of Denali we noticed a hotel or resort on the top of a hill that we thought would offer a interesting view so up the road we went. Yes, there was a great view from the top but the ride up the hill was very entertaining too. One must realize that this was a dirt road going a very steep incline and at best one could possibly go 30 MPH.

That covers the high spots in our visit to Denali and our next stop is Anchorage for only a couple of days and to be honest we didn’t do a whole lot while we were there. We took a tour of the area on our first day and one of the stops was at Alaska Wild Berry Products and this Chocolate waterfall was inside. Since it was for display only it was a bit much in my opinion! They did have a lot of really good Jams and Jellies for sale, and I am pretty sure we bought some of them. I am a real pushover for some good Blackberry Jelly!

Another stop was at the Float Plane Airport of Anchorage. Not really at the airport but close enough that the ATC still could control their take offs and landings.

The big attraction was Earthquake Park and is described as follows on the Official Website “This 134-acre park is set in the woods where, in 1964, an entire neighborhood slid into the ocean during last century’s most powerful earthquake. The earthquake was measured at a 9.2 on the Richter scale and lasted 4 minutes. Today, this tragic event is commemorated in Anchorage’s Earthquake Park, where you’ll find signs explaining the circumstances of the quake and its effect on the area.” Hopefully stating where I copied it and the quotation marks will suffice in giving credit where credit is due. I can’t imagine the devastation of that magnitude. As we travel to places that seam far removed the stories of Earthquake Damage from the big one is told over and over.

Our second day is a free day and Judy wants to take me to Whittier, AK which is a couple of hours away but she says that this is the closest we will be so off we go. It isn’t a great day weather wise, but it isn’t too bad either. For any of you who have taken a cruise to Alaska Whittier is one of the cruise ships stops for those people traveling to the interior for tours. There is only one way into and out of through a pretty long tunnel. Sounds pretty easy until you add in the RR Trains also use the same tunnel. If I remember correctly the tunnel is over two miles long.

Once we were in the town proper it did not take long to tour it however finding a parking space was almost impossible. There was one store that Judy remembered from her Cruise in 2014 called Log Cabin Gifts and to her amazement it was still there! The artist that Judy remembered was away that day, but her granddaughter was running the shop. The granddaughter had been born and raised in Whittier, left to further her education and returned because it was her home.

The town of Whittier was a military base during WWII and eventually the Railroad took possession when the military left. Today almost all of the full-time residents of the town live in one building. We didn’t try to tour the building, but I did get a picture of it. Well as luck would have it my photo didn’t come out, so I went to the good old internet and pulled a shot from a supposed free site. Since I am not getting any revenue from this travel blog, I am not too worried about using it.

While doing my search on Whittier I realized that there are several videos available that show life in the town under one roof. One of the shorter, more interesting ones was from CBS news or the Sunday Morning show with Jane Pauley.

By the time we are leaving it is raining pretty hard and the waterfall coming off the mountain while we waited our turn to use the tunnel was pretty impressive. It was a long day, but I am so glad Judy wanted to share this place with me.

That should be enough for a while. Currently we are in California in the middle of nowhere just outside Yosemite National Park and the TV and Cell service is almost as bad as it was in Canada and Alaska. If it wasn’t for a pay to use internet provide that the RV park offers, I would not be working on this. Maybe I can get some more done before we return to civilization.