Alaska just keeps getting better and better! Lincoln, Alden and his fiancé, Kathy flew out to join us in Denali National Park. It was such a treat to share this with them! The first day we all rode the Green Bus (the mode of transportation around the park) to the end of its line. Unfortunately the road had washed out a couple of years ago and is still being rebuilt so we could not go as far into the park as one once could. The road is expected to reopen July 2026. Hmmmm, we'll need to come back. :-) The kids went on a hike up along one of the ridges while we hiked along the river bed below. Our hope was to see where the road was washed out but we came to a bend in the river where we would have had to cross the river or hike up the mountain and neither of us was interested enough in the washout to do either of those things. We saw signs of moose and caribou, occasional ground squirrels and ptarmigan, but that was it.
Our evenings were spent enjoying time with the kids. Lincoln did most of the cooking; Alden and Kathy most of the cleaning; so it was a big win for us! Lincoln also taught his ancient parents how to play Dungeons and Dragons using game pieces he had hand-painted. It was a lot of fun! We may need to find other people interested in the game so we can play again. Alden and Kathy also taught us Mahjong. Now we'll need to get our own set to play at home. We love that our children all love to play games, it is something we have always enjoyed as a family.
The kids went for a longer hike on our second day in Denali National Park while we relaxed with our coffee at the campground before taking a short hike at "Mountain Vista." Though we had beautiful views of the mountains the kids saw a small herd of Dall sheep! While riding the bus we all saw a caribou hanging out in cool snow field higher up in the mountain but we had to look through binoculars so does that really count? Yes, there were extensive snow fields in July.
On our way out we stopped at the park mercantile to do a bit of shopping, shower, empty Maxine's holding tanks and refill her fresh water tank. While filling the fresh water tank someone alerted us to a moose coming our way. Gregory walked out to look and saw a mama moose with her baby grazing on shrubs along the park road. He took pictures then came back to help Colleen finish filling the tank...50 gallons takes a while. In hindsight we should have aborted our water filling but we were determined to get Maxine ready for the next leg of our journey. As we were filling the tank trying to be as inconspicuous as possible mama moose and her baby walked around the bend and within 10 feet of us. (Check out the amazing pictures we took!) Having spent plenty of time in the NH mountains we both know to give moose lots of distance so it was very stupid of us to stay put filling our tank. Fortunately mama moose didn't see us as a threat and she and her baby continued on their way.
From here our journey continues into Alaska's Southcentral Region. Please check out that page.
The one nice thing about being a day ahead of our schedule now (since we had knocked out two locations we had planned to stay at) is that we could sleep in as long as we wanted. After our nice long sleep we reassessed our schedule and decided that just heading to Fairbanks and staying put for a couple of nights with full hook-ups would do us good. Both of us indulged in long showers, not having to be concerned about our water usage.
We're also learning how much Mr. Tumnus sleeps. Today he achieved "lump status" in under 10 minutes. "Lump status" is when his eyes are closed and he feels like a bag of jello. Since he's usually at home alone during the day we never thought much about what he did all day. He also got some much needed outside time on his leash this afternoon, so it was a break for him as well. He was very curious about the dogs across the street. They were very incurious about him.
On the way from Chena to Fairbanks we did see a mama moose and her calf momentarily before they got out of the pond they were standing in and hid in the edge of the forest. That made the detour worth it!
Today's drive was a bit frustrating, and dare we say it...boring. We made it to our planned destination for the evening, North Pole, AK, but when we arrived at our planned camping spot at a state park we were underwhelmed and honestly didn't like it at all.
So, got pizza at Great Alaska Pizza Co. and continued on to our planned stop for the next day: Chena Hot Springs. The pizza was tasty but the RV camping area at Chena Hot Springs was not at all geared to RVers - seeming like an afterthought at the upscale inn, or a leftover from former days!
After a bit of sniping at each other we finally agreed we neither liked the setting nor felt comfortable staying there. Way too commercialized for us. So, we backtracked and stayed at a pull-out along Chena Hot Spring Road (one way in, one way out). for a quiet night's sleep.