Day of Rest

Tuesday, July 1
We stayed in a motel last night and today drove on to Denali. Of course there are no campground sites available in the park itself so we are staying in one of those "parking lot" places. They just pack you in side by side. It's just a mile from the park though, so that's good. We'll write again when we can. Gotta do laundry and some other necessary evils. Talk to everyone when we can.
Denise started this - I'll add a couple lines. I wasn't impressed with Fairbanks. Just another large city with expressways, strip malls and fast food places as far as I could see. But it did give us the chance to hit a Jiffy Lube and get the oil changed in the truck. It rained all the way from Fairbanks to Denali this morning, so between the low clouds and the madly wiping wipers, we didn't see much other than a very handsome fox by the roadside. The rivers we crossed (the largest called the Tanana) were all pretty wild-looking and it would have been great to stop and explore. We drove into the park first thing and purchased our tickets for tomorrow's bus tour, which will take us 66 miles into the park - an eight-hour round trip, with a chance to get out and maybe do some minor hiking. Hope to get at least a peek at the "tall one" - Denali that is, aka Mt. McKinley. But they tell us it's hit or miss on that depending on the cloud cover, and the average is to only see it one day out of three this time of year. The park is one huge piece of wilderness, you can hardly believe it. Leo and I drove in about fifteen miles this afternoon, as far as they let you drive in your own vehicle, and we barely scratched the surface. Talked to a guy who did the bus tour today and he said they saw ten bears - both blacks and browns - and a lot of other critters. Should be a great trip tomorrow.