Day 98 Friday August 5, 2022 We had rain all day, which is not much fun on a travel day. The scenery along our route was kind of bland so we didn't miss many kodak moments. After driving about 90 miles we pulled over at a fuel stop/convenience store with a very large parking lot right beside the road to Talkeetna. Tom unhooked his Toad so we rode into Talkeetna with them. It is not a good idea to drive a large RV pulling a Toad into town unless you are planning to stay at the RV park in town. We stayed there is 2015. The town is very small and no place to turn around with a rig our size that is also pulling a Toad. We were all wearing rain coats as the rain was still coming down.
We had planned to go to The Roadhouse for coffee and pastries like we did in 2015 but they still have not fully opened for business since COVID. The original part of the building was built around 1914 as a supply depot but several years later a kitchen, a dining room and rooms for rent were added to become a typical remote Alaska Roadhouse.
We rode around a few minutes on the few streets in town around the tourists area. There were several small walk-up places to get different types of food and gifts but we didn't find one that had inside dining but Lena spotted the Conscious Coffee shop across from the Roadhouse so we stopped there even though it was outside dining under their porch shelter. The Lattes were good as was the Sally Ann Crepes. They were busy as there were lots of tourist in town. A lot of ATV, boat, airplane and train tours start out in town. After eating we walked across the street and bought some pastries and I got a Rudy-In-A-Blanket. That is a reindeer sausage with a slit it in filled with two kinds of cheese and then baked in a potato bread roll.
If the weather had been better we would have stayed in town longer and explored more but with the rain coming down we decided to continue on to Denali. It was also raining when we were here in 2015. Tom hooked up his toad and we topped off our fuel tanks (finally for less than $5 a gallon, it was $4.99) and headed on down the road.
About 50 miles from Denali the passenger side windshield wiper arm came loose and flopped over on the mirror. In a few miles I found a pull-out so we stopped and the fix was easy. I was afraid a piece had broken but only the nut that holds the arm in place had come loose a little. So I had it tight and we were back on the road in a few minutes. We arrived at Denali RV Park and Motel about 3:45PM and setup in B4. The rain cleared and the sun came out by 5, then it began to drizzle.
Day 99 Saturday August 6, 2022 We were on a Denali Parks tour bus at 6:30AM for a Tundra Wilderness Bus Tour of Denali National Park and Preserve. This is a 2 million acre National Park and is home to the famous Mount Denali, formally named Mount McKinley. Denali is the highest mountain peak in North America with a summit elevation of 20,130.
Jason, our bus driver, has been working 16 years in Denali and he has lots of information about the park and had an amazing eye for spotting wildlife. All of us were looking but with his experience he was able to see wildlife up on the sides of the mountains and along the ridges. He stopped the bus and gave us time to take lots of photos He had a electronic spotting scope that allowed a really up close look at the animals and the bus had monitor screens in the ceiling that displayed what the scope was seeing. We saw a Northern Hawk Eagle, 7 Dall Sheep, dozens of Caribou, 3 Elk bulls, several moose and 5 Ptarmigans (the Alaska state bird).
The Denali National Park and Preserve is an amazing place. We rode 43 miles into the park. Only the first 15 miles are paved and that is as far as a personal vehicle can go into the park. To go farther into the park, you must hike or ride one of the buses. They have tour buses just for passengers and then buses for people that want to be dropped off to hike or ride their bicycles. The road goes 92 miles into the park but the tour buses can only go 43 miles now due to road damage from a major land slide a few miles from our turn around point.
Day 100 Sunday August 7, 2022 Lena and I returned to the park to attend the sled dog demonstration. When the snow comes to the park and the roads are not passable with motorized vehicles the park employees use dog sled teams to haul materials into the park, monitor park conditions and other ranger duties. They keep around 30 Alaska Huskies in their kennels and they are bred for their strength and endurance. They also had several young puppies. They sure were sturdy looking dogs. As one of the Rangers explained the use of the dogs they hooked up 5 of the dogs to a training sled and gave a demonstration. Those dogs really like to run.
On the way back to the RV Park we stopped and got a Latte and a pastry. At 1PM Tom, Gloria, Lena and I drove down the road a short ways to go on a Side by Side ATV tour of the wilderness. There is an old coal mine area not from the RV Park that was never included in the Park so it is used for ATV tours and other things. We were given a safety briefing and information on how to drive the ATVs. Then we were fitted with a helmet. I started out driving but on the return trip Tom drove. The trails were really rough, full of rocks, mud holes, bumps and even a shallow river. The ATVs are built to handle this type of terrain as each wheel has independent suspension so each wheel and suspension can flex independently. We stopped three times along the trail and the three guides explained the area we were in and a lot about the rocks in the river we stopped in. This was a great adventure and we all enjoyed it. There were about 20 ATVs on the trip.
At 6:45PM we boarded a bus at the RV Park for a ride to The Cabinnite Dinner Theater about 30 miles away. We were served family style and they had baked salmon, ribs, mashed potatoes, corn and baked potatoes with 3 berry cobbler for desert. The servers were also the cast for the humorous musical play about some of the famous people that settle in Denali many years ago.
It was really windy when we got back to the RV Park about 10PM and got even worse later in the night even to the point of rocking the motorhome a few times.
Day 101 Monday August 8, 2022 It is 49 degrees this morning. Our group car pooled to the Husky Homestead kennels a few miles out of Denali. It is owned by Jeff King a four time Iditarod Sled Dog Race Champion. He has run the roughly 1000 mile race 30 times and plans to continue even though he is 66 years old. He has trained dogs for a long time. One of his dog handlers, Amanda, raced in this years Iditarod and plans to run it again next year. They explained how they train the dogs, how they care for them and the system they use for naming them that one of Jeff's daughter came up with. He designs a wheel that the dogs get in and run like a wheel you might see in a hamster cage. He also designed a tread mill they use to train the dogs and it helps them evaluate the dogs to see how the training is advancing.
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