To Denali

At a reasonable hour on the morning of the 27^th we were north bound for Denali and Fairbanks under light cloud with clearing breaks and very light drizzle for an hour or so. Then the weather began to improve until we were under sunny skies with a few white wispy clouds making for a very pleasurable change.

The road surface varied quite a bit and there was construction delays here and there. At one point there was a 30 minute old up for road construction. When we finally got to drive through we understood why we had to wait!

Early afternoon as we were thinking about lunch we took a 14 mile detour up a spur road to the village of Talkeetna, where the guide book said there was a bakery/cafe just before town. We saw the Bakery sign too late to make the turn so we continued on to the village. Talkeetna is an interesting place in a funky touristy way so we wandered around a bit, took AbqL's photo again then got back in the rig to look for the bakery on our way back to the Park Highway.

A few miles down the road, by keeping our eyes peeled we managed to find the bakery. and room to park. We had a very nice lunch and bought a loaf of excellent bread. They make a different style every day; today was molasses something which later proved to be very nice! We were also tempted into a muffin, fruit bar and half a dozen cookies to take with us!

Our past experience with bread in the USA, including from small specialty bakeries, (too sweet at best, soggy sawdust at worst) led us to invest in a bread maker to use whenever we were unable to find decent bread. We have been pleasantly surprised with the bakeries in Alaska, even in the small towns. We haven't had to use the bread maker yet except for a test back at the beginning on Vancouver Island! Storage of this piece of equipment proved to be a bit of a puzzle at first but we eventually figured out a plan: While driving it rides in the sink and the Corian sink cover rides under the dinette cushions. When we are parked and it is not in use sits on the dash!

Back on the Parks highway we stopped at a view point for some photos of Mount McKinley, the highest mountain on the continent. We were fortunate that the cloud co-operated some what!

At about 6:30 we pulled into the Grizzly Bear RV Park a few miles from the entrance to Denali National Park where we booked in for 2 nights. There are millions of acres of park and protected wilderness preservation area that we wanted to devote a day to and there was wireless so we could get caught up there a little too.

At the Denali Visitor Center we were surprised to find very loose control of entrance and fee payment. We bought a one year pass for all USA National Parks while going through Utah in April so we were good to go anyway though we could have just walked in.

After looking around the Visitor Centre and deciding against the bus tour we drove the tracker up the permitted 15 of the 90 or so miles of road way. At one stop Gillian enjoyed a short walk on cabin trail. Note the log cabin and matching dog house.

We stopped at the 15 mile point and had our lunch then Gillian had took the Savage River Loop walk, took a few pictures including several of a flock or ptarmigan then returned to the car.

On the way back down we were fortunate to spot a couple of moose feeding on a hillside in the distance. The 26X zoom lens paid off this time!

By now the blue in the sky was slowly giving way to grey as we made our way back towards the highway. One interesting point, the park is still served by a passenger railway. There we also freight trains passing by the campground fairly regularly.