We went as a group to “The Alaska Salmon Bake” at Pioneer Park on Friday evening. We had been warned the salmon would be over cooked, so almost all of our group chose prime rib. Excellent choice! It was tender and juicy, and the roasted potatoes I had with it were fabulous. Kevin had prime rib with macaroni and cheese. The mac was definitely so-so. The cheesecake afterwards was more than I could eat, so I took mine in a to go container and had it for dinner the next night! After dinner we went to the Palace Theater on the grounds. It was a vaudeville-style show starting off with a great piano player who did a sing along of early 1900s music. I knew most of the songs, and I had so much fun singing. I miss group singing so so much when we travel! After the singing, various vignettes were done regarding early Fairbanks history. Old fashioned fun.
We saw a sun dog on the way back to the motorhome.
On Saturday we headed the short distance to Denali and the Denali RV Park and Motel. We stopped at an old Alaska traditional place, the Monderosa. We definitely recommend this place! Great burgers and fish and chips plus nice folks running the place. The RV place doesn’t have much of a motel, but the RV sites are level with solid hookups. The fact that they are pretty short and narrow is just part of the experience, or so we keep being told.
We went to bed at 9:00 on Saturday because we had to meet the bus for our naturalist trip into Denali. Regular vehicles can drive 15 miles into the park, but to go beyond that requires riding an approved bus. There are two types of buses. One is for hikers and sightseers who want an inexpensive method of seeing the park. No narration, just a hop on, hop off kind of thing. The second type of bus is a dedicated one with the driver adding naturalist commentary. It is a physically nicer bus, provides a snack box, water, and a souvenir booklet (quite nice BTW). The goal is to see wildlife, and the bus stops whenever someone spots something along the road. This is the type we had, and since we the caravan made a special type of group reservation, the bus even picked us up at the campground. The fact that it was to leave at 4:50 am was not mentioned until the day before!
We climbed on, almost awake, and took off for the park. We couldn’t leave the bus when we saw wildlife, but the windows are big enough for lots of picture taking. We saw pretty much everything we wanted to see. Be kind about the pictures; I have a simple Canon point and shoot.
A grizzly bear close to the road.
A young moose a long way from the road.
Dall sheep, a first for me. These were a loooonnnnngggg way away, but my binoculars confirmed I am correct in the identification. You’ll have to trust me.
And caribou! Another first for me. The males have the super long antlers while the female antlers are smaller. Males lose their antlers after the rut, but females keep theirs until late winter meaning all Santa’s reindeer (domesticated caribou) are girls!
Of course the scenery was interesting too. We won’t be seeing the Denali mountain from here because of the rain and clouds, but nice views without that. It started off rainy, then we had some partial clearing.
After a nice nap when we got back to the campground, Kevin and I decided to take a short road trip south on the road we will take to Anchorage in a few days, just to see the sites and pull-ins we can’t do in the motorhome. When the clouds came down and it started to rain, the mountains became ethereal and fascinating. They basically disappeared into the mists.
We did see something a bit different – the tourist train headed into Denali from points south (Anchorage and others). That would be a fun ride!
We ended up at the 49th State Brewery just north of town for an early dinner at 4:30. Beer was ok, and the food was good. Very busy though!
Tomorrow we are on our own until the evening when we attend a show. More on that later.