To Anchorage - #52-13

July 12, 2005 (Tue)
Pioneer Park RV Campground, Fairbanks, AK (3)

Pioneer Park is on the Tanana River. This morning we discovered a bike path along the river while we were out walking. The mosquitoes are a little more abundant there but not bad. It apparently goes all the way to city center (Pat rode her bike there later) but we went only a mile and a half before turning back. It was a lovely walk.

A trip to the migratory bird sanctuary was next on our agenda. It turned out to be a big empty field. It might have been interesting during migration season but not today. No one was interested in the dairy barn tour available at the same location. We then went to the Alaska Bowl Co. factory. That was interesting as we were able to watch part of the production process but the bowls were too expensive.

Before lunch we took Q to Sears to have his battery checked again (Wamart checked it yesterday and found nothing wrong) and again the tests showed nothing wrong. There still seems to be a problem but since Sears charged us for their testing they must be right. After lunch Mark, Bob, and Ed went to the library to do email. Later Joy and Pat went into city center with Ed and Kathy to check out a craft shop - and others.

We are now in another part of the parking lot. Busses bringing tourists to the Alaska Salmon Bake often wait for their charges to eat their fill - with engines running - near our motor homes! Most annoying!
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July 13, 2005 (Wed)
Pioneer Park RV Campground, Fairbanks, AK (4)

Today we took a ride on Discovery III. No not the space shuttle, a sternwheeler riverboat. We boarded at 8:45 for a 3 1/2 hour "cruise" down the Chena River and then up the Tanana River a way. Although it wasn't a long trip and was tightly orchestrated, it was very well done and interesting. In addition to the informative running commentary, we stopped to watch a float plane take off (twice) and land (once), a reindeer herd come out of the woods, Susan Butcher exercise her dogs, and an Athabascan Indian village. Susan Butcher has won the previously male dominated 1,100-mile Iditarod dogsled race four times (1986, 1987, 1988, and 1990). She lives on the Chena River and came out to talk with us before she took some of her dogs for a (fast!) run pulling a disabled ATV.

We actually got off the boat at the indian village where we were treated to four excellent interpretive talks around the village.

It was a beautiful day, sunny and 80° so this afternoon we just "hung out" at our parking lot camp site and read - to the wonderful sound of dueling generators. Ed and Kathy left for Denali this morning, while we were on our cruise. Chip and Kim left mid afternoon. We, and Bob and Pat are off tomorrow.

While we were cooking our tailgate salmon barbecue for supper, the parking lot around us began to fill up with vintage cars, sports cars, and trucks. Thirty some of them! Apparently they were gathering for a parade. An old jeep wrangler, painted bright red, sported flags on both front fenders and a sign stating "Vernon L. Nash Antique Car Club of Fairbanks". Q, vintage 2003, was definitely out of place in their midst. Then they were gone in a single long line bound for downtown Fairbanks.

Dominoes ended the day.
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July 14, 2005 (Thu)
Denali RV Park & Motel #J6 elec $22.50 C+
Fairbanks, AK to Denali Park, AK (143/6202 miles) Q018516

Up at 6:00 (50°), Showers, Breakfast and off at 7:10 (60.4° and clear). There was on and off road construction for the first 25 miles or so. Construction here usually means the road surface is completely taken up and discarded leaving dirt, gravel, or today, mud. Guide cars kept us from going too fast or sliding off the road. the rest of the trip, though somewhat flat with a slow steady climb, was beautiful. We could see snow covered mountains off in the distance most of the way.

In the visitor's center in Nenana, AK we were given sightseeing ideas by an enthusiastic (maybe overly enthusiastic) older gentleman. He's retired from driving a tour bus in Denali National Park and loves helping people enjoy visiting the area. While there, we toured the old railroad depot building and stopped in to see St. Mark's Episcopal Church (a log structure) around the corner. The pews are hand carved and the altar cloth is a bleached moose hide beaded by local women.

Once we were settled into our campsites, we went into Denali National Park to insure that our reservations were in order. They were, but it's good we went on and got the chore out of the way today. Arranging for the bus ride deep into the park got rather complicated. The visitor's center (new and still under construction) had a wonderful movie about the character of the park with very little voice-over narration. The interpretive displays were equally well done.
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July 15, 2005 (Fri)
Teklanika Campground #46 dry $8.00g A-
Denali Park, AK to Denali National Park, AK (27/6229 miles) Q018543

Up at 6:00 (53°) and off at about 6:45. Our stay in the National park will be four nights without hookups or facilities except for toilets - i.e. no fresh water and no dump station. Once in the campground - about 20 miles into the park - Q is not allowed leave it until the end of our stay. Needless to say, we emptied our holding tanks and took on a full tank of fresh water on our way in.

We were denied access to the restricted area until 10:00 because - well, the reasons vary and none are really credible. More confusion! But to make up for the hour and a half wait at the gate, a caribou became our road companion for a while on the way in. He jumped out in front of us and trotted down the middle of the road ahead of us for over a mile. He was a little wary of us being there behind him, he kept looking back over his shoulder, but not wary enough to detour into the shrubbery. We also got a rare view of Mount McKinley. It was a hazy view from a distance but it wasn't completely shrouded in clouds as it usually is. Beautiful!

After getting set up in our campsite and eating lunch, we and Bob and Pat took a 7 mile bicycle ride deeper into the park. The weather - big puffy white clouds with the temperature in the low 80s - was perfect, the scenery - mountains all around - magnificent, and the road - gravel with only a couple of steep hills - tolerable. For wildlife we saw only a grizzly bear far off and on the other side of the Teklanika River.

July 16,2005 (Sat)
Teklanika Campground, Denali National Park, AK (2)

Access to Denali National Park is severely restricted. At Teklanika Campground, we are as far in as private vehicles are permitted to go and only campers are allowed this far. To go further we needed to purchase passes on the park shuttle bus which we had and today we went the rest of the way in - 100 miles round trip. What a trip it was! Had our bus been painted yellow it would have been a school bus. It was green. The road was a narrow, twisting, winding one lane gravel path into the most spectacular country we've seen so far. Like the Dall sheep we saw high in the mountains along the way we often clung to sides of the steep mountain walls and looked down into the flat rocky river beds hundreds of feet below. Our bus driver was asked how high up we were. "Fifteen bus-rolls." he said, "But I can make it in ten." It's hard to understand why some of those roads didn't slide off into the void. The bus was way too long to make it around some of the turns, but it did, and far too wide to pass another bus on that road, but it did constantly.

Our driver/guide knew the road and his subject well from several years of experience. He also knew where the wildlife might be located but his passengers helped by yelling "stop" when we saw an animal. And other buses indicated a sighting by stopping on the road. As a result we saw not only the Dall sheep but several grizzly bears - some with cubs, caribou, mooses, foxes - one a vixen with three kits at their den, a golden eagle - and nest, and a couple of gyr falcons - a rare sighting so our driver said. At Wonder Lake, the end of the road, we were 90 miles from the nearest commercial establishment and well over a hundred miles from the nearest McDonalds. And most amazing of all, we were less than 600 miles from Russia!

We staggered into our campsite after the nine hour adventure exhausted and rump sore but fulfilled.
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July 17, 2005 (Sun)
Teklanika Campground, Denali National Park, AK (3)

We started off today with Bob celebrating Holy Eucharist for us in Ed and Katy's motor home - A nice way to begin a day with uncertain weather prospects. It was pouring rain when we got up and we both got soaked trudging over to the rest rooms. It did stop raining though and the sun came out a few times during the day. The temperature never got above 66° though. We spent the rest of the day, most of it anyway, just sitting around enjoying this beautiful place.

This evening we all got together at Bob and Pat's motor home to help Chip and Kim celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary. Bob and Pat fixed hot wings and barbecued lamb. The rest of us filled in the gaps.
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July 18,2005 (Mon)
Teklanika Campground, Denali National Park, AK (4)

It was raining again this morning and the sky looked as if it might keep up all day and it did. With no sun to warm things up the temperature only got up to 57°. Chip and Kim said last night that they planned to leave this morning and they apparently did as we haven't seen them. They were in another part of the campground so we can't tell from here. Ed and Kathy were going to leave this morning too but decided to wait until afternoon in hopes that the rain would let up some.

We'd hoped to do some bicycling today but instead we hung out inside reading, knitting and napping. In the evening we played dominoes with Bob and Pat.

Q is still giving us a problem starting. It's intermittent and does start with some coaxing - and a boost from the house batteries. We are debating what to do about it.
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July 19, 2005 (Tue)
Byers Lake Campground, Denali State Park, AK #D5 dry $10.00 C-
Denali National Park, AK to Denali SP, AK (120/6349 miles) Q018663

4 days dry camped and we still had a half tank of fresh water. Our reward for being frugal was much needed showers. We got off at about 7:30 and drove out on a 15 mile ribbon of mud slurry - from yesterday's rain - before hitting the paved road. The weather was definitely better than yesterday but the haze/fog/cloud was too thick to see Mount McKinley. But the mountains we could see were beautiful, shrouded in cloud with heavy fog lying in the valleys. We dumped the holding tanks and took on fresh water at the park entrance. Then we were southbound on the George Parks Highway (AK-3).

Along the way and out in the middle of nowhere we overtook a fellow frantically pumping a wheelchair down the shoulder of the highway. A sign on the back of his escort car read "Caution wheelchair racer ahead". A few miles later we came across another and still further, others - some 10 or 12 in all). We learned later that they were on the third 50 mile leg of the "Sadler's Ultra Challenge" a 267 mile Fairbanks to Anchorage wheelchair race. 267 miles in a wheelchair in 6 days! Think about it.

Our plan was to spend the night at Denali View North campground. We thought it would be a fantastic place to camp with a panoramic view of the Alaska Range featuring Mount McKinley. The "campground" turned out to be a parking lot at an overlook. That wouldn't have been a problem except that the it was also finish line for today's leg of the wheelchair race. The parking lot was filled up with racer service tents and refreshment tables, official vehicles, news vehicles, and exhausted racers. We could have found room but decided to go on because the mountain was not visible anyway. Byer's Lake campground, also in Denali State Park, is typical "state park" - in the woods with plenty of space between sites. It's a nice campground but the mosquitos are prevalent and the pit toilets are in need of maintenance.
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July 20, 2005 (Wed)
Golden Nugget Camper Park #206 dry $17.00 B
Denali State Park to Anchorage, AK (178/6527 miles) Q018841

Up at 6:00 (51°) to find clear skies and the thought that Mount McKinley might be visible. So we walked up the half mile path to the Alaska Veteran's Memorial where we were treated to the most spectacular view. The mountain was crystal clear and dominated the western landscape. It was like a huge snow bank towering over the closer jagged mountains of trees and rock. The sun made it glow as if lit from within. What a way to start the day!

We drove up the the memorial overlook on the way out for another look at Mt Mckinley then proceeded south on the George Parks Highway. Other view points along the highway were socked in with fog but Denali View South - an overlook - gave us a clear view. But the parking lot was also being used as the start for today's leg of the wheelchair race so there was a lot of activity there.

The rest of the trip down was beautiful but uneventful except for almost running out of gas in Wasilla - the gas gauge showed empty as we sat dead stopped in a construction traffic jam. We also took a side trip to the village of Talkeetna. Pretty little town but not at all set up to take large RVs - no place for them to park. Talkeetna Roadhouse Restaurant is also a bakery - Wonderful raspberry scones, cinnamon buns, and blueberry cinnamon buns. We were very bad!

We pulled into the Golden Nugget Camper Park in the middle of Anchorage at about 1:20. We'll be here at least three nights. Chip and Kim joined us for dominoes after supper. They got here last night and are leaving tomorrow.