Denali National Park 8/1/14

Day 91 of our summer trip.

Today is Earl’s birthday.  It is cloudy and rainy.  There is fog and the clouds are hiding the tall mountains.  We are going to Denali National Park to see if the weather is any different 30 miles away from where our camp is.  No, it is still drizzling and there are clouds and fog, just like at camp, here at the entrance of the park.


We went to the visitor center where we watched some movies about Denali and looked at the displays that were there.  The first view of the topographical rendition of the Alaska Range and Mt. McKinley is the southern side that we had been taking photos of  two and three days ago.  The second view of the model shows a red line where the park road is.  There is a spotlight on Mt. McKinley.  We will be viewing it from the opposite side from which we saw it before, if we can see it at all.  Private vehicles are allowed on the first 15 miles, only.  If you want to go further, you must take a park bus. 


There were also dioramas of the forest animals with all sorts of interactive learning opportunities in the visitor center.



We decided to drive the road as far as we could.  Maybe we would see some wild animals, we thought.  Well, we didn’t see any animals.  I guess they all were home, out of the rain.  There were some nice views though.  I think it is so interesting that the fog develops in such a straight line at that certain altitude.


In our pursuit of Mt. McKinley, I think that I found out where it is supposed to be seen, if it was a clear day.  There was a view point with a picture that pointed out and labeled the different mountain peaks.  I could barely make it out with my zoomed in camera lens, but I think I matched the diagram pretty good, minus Mt. McKinley.  I think that the peak in the center is Cathedral Mt. and the dark area to the left is the same as the dark area to the left in the labeled picture.  Of course, Mt. McKinley is the bright white peak in the diagram.  What do you think?



The railroad has a station located in the Denali Nat. Park.  It is located near the visitor center.  While we were returning from the 15 mile drive, we saw the railroad trestle over the Nenana River.  We went to the station and the train was just about to leave.


There are several visitor centers in Denali.  We went to the one where people sign up for adventure tours or  back country trekking, etc.  We watched another movie there.  They had this amazing stained glass window.


I did a close up of each half so the details showed up better.  Even the shadows on the mountain are in the shape of animals, or maybe my imagination is running wild.


We had a nice day at the park even though the weather wasn’t the best. 
Tomorrow we will be going to Fairbanks.

Talkeetna, AK to Cantwell, AK 7/31/14

Day 90 of our summer trip. 

We did not travel far today. For the past two days, we have had beautiful clear skies and fantastic views of Mt. McKinley.  It is said that only 30% of all visitors to Alaska get to see the mountain during their visit.  We feel very privileged to have had two great days.  Today is the more usual view of the mountain and similar to what we saw when we were in Alaska on our cruisetour with Princess Cruise Line several years ago.  We are sure that we are looking in the right direction, because we took these photos from the same general area that we took yesterday's clear view photos. 

Now, we have made many twists and turns and have made our way farther north.  We don't even know if we are looking in the right direction to see Mt. McKinley.  What we do know is that no matter which direction we look, there are low hanging clouds that obscure the views of any high mountains that are out there.

The fireweed is so beautiful and plentiful right now, so I just had to include it in today's post.  We took these photos right before we left our campsite in Talkeetna.  Notice the bee on the first photo.

 

 

We found a nice RV park, the Cantwell RV Park, in Cantwell, AK.  Cantwell is located about 25 - 30 miles south of the entrance to Denali National Park.  Here is where we will stay for the next two nights.  This is definitely a seasonal campground.  It has electricity and water at the site and a dump station.  Interestingly, the water is supplied to each site in PVC piping laid on the ground, so that it can be picked up at the end of the tourist season and there is no worry about frozen, broken pipes.  That is what is inside the orange pipes on the ground.  It works fine.

There are animals at the RV Park.  They are the most wild animals that we have seen for quite awhile - a moose, a bear, and a wolf.  The plants have sort of hidden the bear, but he was there.

After we got settled in our campsite, we went to get some milk.  We wanted fat free milk, but all we could find at the store was 2%, so we decided to get 1/2 gallon to last until we got to a bigger store.  It was different and cost $6.99/half gallon.  The expiration date was 9/18/14!!!  We thought maybe they had made a mistake at the dairy, but all of that brand had the same date.  We looked and looked to see what was different about this milk but we couldn't figure it out.  Since I am writing this post after the actual time that it happened then back dating it, I can tell you that we did finally figure out what the difference was.  We went into a supermarket and saw that the same brand of milk had a regular milk dated to expire in a couple weeks and an "ultra-pasteurized" version that cost much more.  Since the convenience store that we had gone to did not have any other options available when we were there, we didn't have much choice and couldn't compare.  You always learn something.  The milk tasted the same as usual and was gone well before the expiration date.