Alaska or Bust: Homer-> Anchorage -> Denali

Sunday – Homer to Anchorage (July 31)

Sunday we drove from Homer up to Anchorage. We were originally going to spend 3 days in Anchorage but have since rethought our plan. Tom needed to get to get his oil changed and we needed to get a few things fixed on the camper as well as doing some shopping.

Monday – Anchorage (Aug 1)

We camped at a campground that was very convenient to downtown Anchorage, but we pulled up stakes 1^st thing this morning as soon as Tom was back from the Ford dealer. In the meantime, I managed to get us locked out of the camper as we were getting it hitched up to go the dealer. Fortunately, they were able to get it opened up for us J Still not sure how that happened since the door has never locked behind us before. The campground was not the worst one I have ever camped at but it sure came close, very close. The bathrooms were clean but it just gave me a creepy feeling. And besides, who ever heard of a campground office closing at 5PM on a summer evening??

We have grocery shopped, made an REI run, gone to the one and only camera shop in Alaska where I got the definitive word that my camera was toast, and have since bought a new one. Ate lunch at the Moose's Tooth, a local brewpub serving Hungarian food. It was a good day for goulash since it is so cold, grey and rainy outside. We’re all finished with everything that we have to do in Anchorage and are hanging out at a coffee shop just waiting to pick up the camper so we can heard north to Denali. I’ve decided that Anchorage is just another mid sized American city with every known chain store as we have in the lower 48.

As soon as we picked up the camper we headed out of town after a brief stop at a reindeer sausage place. I actually was able to find the worst campground ever tonight near Wasilla. It had an awesome website, very professionally done, but wow the campground was horrid. Well, it wasn’t so much the campground itself as it was the rusted out school bus camper, the multiple dog kennels, the couple that look remarkably like meth addicts as well as a few other scary things. The good thing about having a camper is that once it’s set up, you don’t have to leave. We couldn’t actually see the campground until after we had paid, but we were out of there lickity-split this morning in a total downpour before most of the "permanent" residents were awake.

Tuesday – DENALI!!!! (Aug 2)

We arrived at Denali and got all set up in our campground (nice one) and headed to the park. We picked up our shuttle bus passes for Wednesday to go out to Wonder Lake, at mile 85 on the park road. The end of the park is mile 92 at Kantishna, an old gold mine that I believe is actually private property. There are no private vehicles past the 15 mile mark on the road unless you are at one particular campground, then you can drive out, but you can't take your vehicle out of the campground until you leave the campsite for good. The shuttle is supposed to take 10 hours round trip on a park bus that looks surprisingly like a school bus painted green. We are supposed to be able to get off anywhere we want and flag down the next bus as long as there is room available on it. 170 miles on a school bus on a dirt road sounds kind of torturous, but I’ll report back on that one.

We did go on a really nice hike, only a couple of miles but it was along the Savage River, and I was able to get some nice shots using my new camera J.

Tomorrow, depending on the weather we hope to get in a couple of nice day hikes. It was in the 50s all day today and is very cold, windy and dreary now. Hopefully the wind is bringing in good weather.

Kate