Monday, August 19, 2024

Ivonne and I shared a king bed again at The McKinley Chalet Resort.  Good thing we manage well together!

This was our last full day of the trip.  Unfortunately, we only had until 2:15 p.m. when we would board the coach north, to Fairbanks.  Thus, we knew we had to scramble to see anything at Denali.

We rode the shuttle bus over to the National Park Visitor Center and immediately got in line to attend the sled dog demonstration at 10:00 a.m.  The day was quite chilly and it was raining but we were prepared.   And it was certainly worth it to see these adorable huskies! They gave us about 30 minutes to walk around the area and even PET the dogs that WANTED the attention.

Ranger Ryan, who did the tour, was very well spoken and engaging.  I was floored to learn that there have been 5000 generations of sled dogs in Alaska. Dogs are humans oldest companion.  We truly enjoyed doing this free excursion which is only presented 3 times per day.

Now we have only 3 hours left until our transportation to Fairbanks.  What to do?  We decided to jump on another free shuttle that went out to Savage Camp.  It’s at the end of the paved road, only 13 miles in, and a 2-hour round trip. As we got settled on the bus, we calculated our time and realized we’d BARELY make it back to catch our coach. 

We did have time to watch the movies in the visitor center and look at the exhibits.  Very well done and of course we could have spent much more time there.  I had NO IDEA that the park is 9,492 square miles of non-fenced wilderness.  The magnitude of it blows my mind.

We took a stop in Nenana (love that name) which had a total of three restrooms we could use.  It also had a very old bar that was owned by the railroad in the ’40s.  Our driver said that the bathrooms used to be jail cells.  So three guesses where Ivonne and I went during our 30-minute break.

We drove another 75 minutes until we reached Fairbanks, our furthest north destination.  It had to be our final stop because the only other road north is the gravel Dalton highway, which begins 80 miles north of Fairbanks, and runs 414 miles to the Arctic Ocean.  No thanks.

We had a little mix up when we got to town as our paperwork said we were at one hotel, yet the coach driver said were at another. 

And as luck would have it, the rest of our group was staying here as well.  So we got to enjoy our last meal together.

The rest of the group were all leaving at a reasonable time the next day but our flight was it 2:51 a.m.  We called it an early night but only after we all had the drink of Alaska, the Duck Fart. 

And with that, we said our goodbyes and Ivonne and I tried to sleep from 10:00 to midnight.  Unfortunately, we had little success.

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