We let the kids sleep in while Michelle did laundry and I added photos to some older blog entries. Only behind one day now, yay! Ate some cereal at the hotel and finally herded the kids out about 11:45a just ahead of the noon checkout limit. Whew!
Fairbanks folk plug in their cars to these parking lot sockets during the winter to keep their engine from freezing
Gassed up the car and ate at the Sourdough Cafe. “Sourdough” doesn’t refer to bread, but rather is what Alaskans call Ol’ Timers. I had eggs, bacon, hash browns (very yummy!), and toast. Addison had steak and eggs, Michelle some fried flounder, and Genetta a chicken sandwich. The food was pretty good and the waitress a little testy, but it was filling at least.
Headed out on Parks Highway (AK3) to McKinley Park. It was about a two hour drive that would’ve had nice scenery but for the constant rain and low-level cloud cover. Still what we saw was pretty.
A very common sight for any summer travel in Alaska -- at least they generally wave and are friendly!
Arrived at McKinley Park at 4p and visited the Visitor Center at Denali National Park. The building evoked a wilderness lodge feel and had a number of interesting exhibits on the geography, animals and plants, and people of the park. We left to go to the gift shop and bought a few things, then the cafeteria to get some Starbucks. Finally went to the Science Center and watched a 17 minute video about Denali. Was hoping it’d be more informative, was more a “here’s some pretty pictures of the seasons and also some cute baby animals” film. Oh well. They did have a neat map quilt of the park showing all of the different biomes.
Denali National Park visitor center exhibits
Drove down the park road for the 15 miles that are open to private vehicles. After that only shuttle and tour buses are permitted. Despite the constant rain I still managed to get some pictures in. We had to scuttle any notion of walking, however. The terrain was mostly boreal forest and some tundra, moderate hills and small mountains, and a pretty braided stream.
Boreal forest in Denali National Park
Rock formation near Savage River, Denali National Park
Beautiful scenery, despite the rain, in Denali NP
Denali National Park, Alaska
More beautiful scenery at Denali NP
Small mountains at Denali NP
At the end of the road there were a number of gulls — turns out that they fly to Denali and lay their eggs in the islands in the middle of the stream as foxes and other predators won’t go out there. The gulls were very used to humanity, landing on cars as they parked. The outhouse in the parking lot had its roof covered in grasses and flowers as well.
Mew Gull, they nest on the gravel bars in the middle of braided rivers
Savage River, Denali NP
One last bit of scenery from Denali NP
Headed back to our place, McKinley Chalet, and checked-in. The room is OK, not great, but the location one mile away from the park is nice. Went out to eat at Lynx Creek Cafe and had a garbage pizza (Michelle had a spinach calzone instead), cheese bread sticks, and cinnamon sticks for dessert. Very yummy! Headed back to the room by 10p to blog and sleep.
McKinley Chalet, where we rested our heads...
Route for Saturday, July 18, 2015