Fairbanks, new friends and Denali National Park!

Hello from rainy Fairbanks! Luckily we arrived before the rain started but once it did it rained for 2 days straight. It was OK as it gave us a chance to get caught up on laundry and cleaning. Plus it inspired me to bake some scones to go with a cup of tea!

Finally the sun did come out and the people did too! We met some lovely folks, Bev & Jerry from Wisconsin and Chris & Meg from California. Fred Meyer had lobster tails on sale for 2 for $14.99 so we indulged with some shrimp as well. 
 

The indulging continued as we took a day to head to Chena Hot Springs. It was a little farther out than we had originally thought and took us about 1 1/2 hours to get there. We enjoyed soaking in the springs but found the resort to be more "family friendly" that we would have preferred.  There were several pools but only 1 of the springs pools was adult only and the rest were overrun by kids. 

We laughed because apparently this duck family didn't know the rules.😄

The grounds are interestingly landscaped using old vehicles and the lodge has some interesting decor as well...

 

Given the distance to get there, staying overnight at the lodge would make sense (for those of you considering a trip to Alaska in the future😉). They even have housing for all employees on property. For us, it was back in the truck for the hour and a half ride back to Fairbanks. We were rewarded though by a fabulous beginning of a sunset (this was around 11pm). 

From Fairbanks we went on to Denali National Park. We loved our time at this park! Our campsite was at Riley Creek which was right in the park and allowed us to hike right from Phoebe. 

First stop, of course was to the Visitor's center to get the scoop. This place was so big they even had two movies to watch. Speaking of big, check out this moose giving Dave the "eye".😆 Me, I liked hanging out with this bear.

We took our first drive into the park to see what we could see. There is just 1 road in the park that is 92 miles long but due to a landslide in 2021 the road is closed past mile 47 and only allowed that far by tour bus or special permit. As you can see from the picture on the right, Mt. McKinley was hidden in the clouds for our first night. Good thing we have 5 nights! The views were still spectacular, even with the clouds.

I thought this shot was pretty cool with the shuttle bus on the road, the trees, the mountains and clouds. Of course, nothing was as cool as the sled dogs and they do a demonstration right in the park just past the visitor's center.

After the demonstration of the dogs "sledding" you can go visit them. Nucha was pretty tired after her performance.😀 The best thing was at the 4pm show we got to see the puppies! They carried them in and then let them run back to their area. They were so cute and check out those paws! That's going to be a big sled dog one day. 

 

The next day we were off on the hikes right from the campsite. Kudos to this park for having the trails so well marked! Interesting enough there are only marked trails at the beginning of the park and here they encourage you to explore the park "off trail". Given the wildlife that is here (grizzly bears!), we thought it best to stick with the marked trails.😏

We ended up back at the Visitor's center and decided to hop on one of the shuttle buses up to Savidge River to hike more up there. Dave got a great shot of the flag. Hard not to feel really fortunate to live in such an amazingly beautiful country! Then, as if to reinforce that thought we saw Mt. McKinley for our first time! That shot is about 30 miles away but the clouds had lifted so we could see the giant snow covered mountain. The statistic is that only 30% of visitors get the see it when they are here. We were lucky!

Back on the trail back to the campsite so we can run the generator for an hour before quiet time. One of the negatives of staying inside the park camground but the positives more than outweigh the negatives. We even had some cell service as I'm texting Jan on the way.😊 Such pretty flowers to enjoy as well.

The next day was our Tundra Wilderness Bus Tour that takes us past where we could go with our truck up to mile 47. We saw a family of Ptarmigan, which is the Alaska state bird along the road. They are brown so they blend in really well but the bus driver knew what to look for and stopped. There is one at the bottom of the picture and one in the green grasses.

We saw this Caribou running and a few more but they were pretty far away (they are the brown dots on the side of the rocks.) 

The landscape was magnificent and the gravel road was the best we've been on the whole trip!

And the best part was we got to see the mountain again! It's the highest mountain in North America at 20,310 feet above sea level!

Our last day we went into "town" to do some Christmas shopping and had a close encounter with this bear. Good thing all he wanted was my credit card! 😋

Then because I still wanted to do more hiking and why not since it stays light so long we ventured out to Horseshoe Lake trail at 8pm.

What a great trail, highly recommend! Only about 2 miles long and a loop around the lake and next to the Nenana River. While it was starting to get a little overcast we never got rained on and still got some amazing shots.

We could see evidence of beaver but they must of been having a late dinner because we never actually saw them. We did see lots of other cool stuff...

 ...Including this petrified wood that Dave was just enamored with. He figured the tree had to be at least 20 feet wide. I could barely drag him away from it.

Me, I am all about the animals and loved that this squirrel seemed to pose just for me!

Then as we were heading back up the 250 ft back to the road this Ptarmigan came right out to greet us. We know from our bus tour this is the female because she does not have red eyelids like the males. Apparently the larger the red lid the "sexier" the male is...who knows? Maybe she thought our tired eye lids were getting close to red. It was an awesome hike and we loved Denali National Park! Stay tuned as we venture to Anchorage next. Thanks for following us and keeping us in your prayers for travel mercies!  We'll leave you this time with a video clip of the dogs getting ready to go; they love to pull!