July 17, 2014
Internet access is very poor here so if we miss a day or two we will catch up when we can.
This morning was a partly cloudy,
partly sunny morning with no rain. The forecast was not great but it
looked pretty good. By the way – it is still not getting dark. It
was just that one night that fooled us. Neither of us slept much
last night and we know it was plenty light enough to go outside and
do pretty much anything with out outside lighting all night long.
 |
| Mat-Su RV Park, a very nice place to stay |
So this morning after breakfast we left
Mat-Su RV park in Willow and headed for Denali National Park. There
were some additional things we wanted to do here and just didn't have
enough time when Barry and Donna were with us. It had rained here
before we arrived, but we had a pleasant rain free drive. We saw a
nice looking moose on the way. Finally, a moose that was where it
was suppose to be – a moosey looking place. He was in a little
pond putting his head part way underwater getting the pond grasses to
eat. Unfortunately, traffic did not allow a picture.
When we arrived here at Denali we went
to the Mercantile Store to register and get out campsite and mmmmm
they had huckleberry ice cream. Oh, so good! We had this when we
were in Homer and couldn't pass it up today. We plan on visiting the
Mercantile frequently while we are here.
We chose to stay in Riley
Creek Campground – the one closest the the entrance to the park.
Being a national park and a national park with many animals, they
greatly restrict where we can take Scout. There are just a few
trails – close to the entrance – that they allow dogs to be on –
on leash of course. Otherwise – they much stay in the campground
or parking lots. Not so much fun for Scout, so we wanted to be able
to easily go to some areas he would get some exercise. We really
like our site. It is on Wolf Loop and has pretty good distance
between our neighbors. There are no hookups but they have 4 dump
stations and potable water fills sites. You can only run generators
for 2 hours in the morning and 2 in the evening – more than enough
for us. After getting set up we had to spend some time getting a
erroneous charge corrected from last visit. Our bus tour of the park
was billed twice on our credit card. The person at the campground
registration helped us and called the manager for the bus tours and
they took care of the problem very efficiently. What a pleasant
surprise that was. We were prepared to spend most of the afternoon
getting our money back. Moral of the story – always check your
credit card bills carefully. Also – just because you have heard
bad things about a business/person – don't make it so. Aramark has
the contact for concessions in Denali and the employees here are most
pleasant, polite and well trained.
While we were getting the charge taken
care of, we saw one of the Park Rangers and talked to her about Aunt
Jean's Alaska photo album. We showed her the album and she was very
interested in the pictures taken here in Denali, particularly
Polychrome Pass. She has now determined who we need to contact here
at the park museum and called us back later in the day and gave us
the phone number so we can make contact.
 |
| One of the pictures from Aunt Jean's album |
After that little bit of business it
was time to play. We decided to drive the first 16 miles of the park
road – as far as you can go in a private auto – and look for wild
life. It looked like it was going to rain so we didn't really plan
anything else. It wasn't raining when we reached the end so we
decided to do the Savage River Loop Trail (2 miles) – hoping we
wouldn't get wet. We ended up doing ¾ of the loop at least twice
because we found a photogenic caribou. He had a nice rack and was
not too shy.
We plan to be here at Denali 3 nights.
Tomorrow morning – weather permitting, 80% change of rain – we
plan to do an early drive into the park looking for wild life, then
return for a good campground breakfast.
No comments:
Post a Comment