Day 59: North Pole to Denali

June 12, 2014

Today we left North Pole, Alaska and moved to Denali for a few days. We started with delicious cream cheese iced sweet rolls we bought at Fred Meyer’s last night, then disconnected and headed south. Along the way we could see the Alaska Range in the distance and more beautiful terrain along the road. We stopped at the Nenana Valley Visitor Information Center for a few minutes and talked to the nice lady about the area.

This statue in Nenana honors some little known soldiers of World War II

Nenana is where the annual Ice Classic is held.  We did have numerous constructions delays, with pilot cars, removed pavement, very rough roadway and one lane sections.  It probably took 2 hours longer than normal but otherwise it was an uneventful drive. Of course, the truck and Fred were both muddy from the construction areas.

After we set up at the Denali RV Park and Motel, we loaded up in the truck and drove the 8 miles to Denali National Park.

We had registered for the early morning bus tour into the park tomorrow and registration included the park entrance fee of $10 per person. By going to the registration desk at Riley Creek Mercantile and showing our Senior Pass we received a refund of that $40. Fortunately we decided to drive through the campground to see if it is a place we might want to stay later in the summer. As soon as we turned into the camping area we were greeted by a moose cow and calf feeding in one of the campsites. Of course we took a few (few?) pictures.

 

 

We then drove to the park’s Visitor Center to look at the displays and get more information. While there we hiked a couple of trails, then went back to the Mercantile and bought some huckleberry ice cream that we all thought was better (and less expensive) than Hot Licks in Fairbanks.

On the way back to Fred we stopped to visit a few of the shops in Denali Village.  We will be doing the bus tour early in the morning - 5:00 am pickup - so it's another early wake-up call.