Denali-sort of Day 1

It's been a disappointing day. We woke up to steady rain, and after a 150-mile drive, we arrived to find Denali NP closed. I thought I had been keeping up but had mistaken their "full operations" to mean the park was open. Apparently, none of the park is open at all. So we have 4 nights and a bus trip out of our itinerary.

On the brighter side, we had breakfast at The Flying Squirrel bakery in Talkeetna, AK. I had a delicious freshly smoked salmon breakfast sandwich with cream cheese, red onions, and tomato on fresh baked whole grain bread. Phil had the breakfast burrito. I bought a T-shirt and cookies and extra coffee to go.

We stopped a few times in the rain to stretch our legs and go to the bathroom. I watched a state park employee try to start his weed eater as he was apparently planning to work in the pouring rain. (These Alaskans are pretty tough!)

At Cantwell, a mother moose and her twin calves darted across the road, but Phil was able to slow for their crossing.

I commented to Phil on the surprisingly low number of campers we were seeing. Apparently, I was the only one who didn't get the memo... So now we are camped 6 miles from the park entrance at Grizzly Paw Cabins and RV park while we regroup. It's noisy, but we have a big space with room for our bug hooch so we can also escape the rain, which is forecast for the next 2 days. We have electricity, flush toilets, and showers. It's pricey, but better than we would have had in the park.

I am grateful for a place to go at this point. Others have told us they were really disappointed at Denali, and we may never know now if we love it or not. (Edit: The park is closed for wildfires. 25% contained right now.) Czytaj więcej