We arrived at the
Denali National Park Sunday, July 13. Steve & I scoped out the Denali National Park’s Visitors Center located inside the park & then drove down the highway about 5 miles outside the park to a campground. Our main
Denali reservation at the campground which is located just 1 mile outside of the park entrance was not available until Tuesday.
After spending the night in the Grizzly Bear Campground we took a “short” drive south to visit the
Denali State Park. We soon found that it was not such a short drive after all & after visiting the state park we continued slightly further south to visit the town of
Talkeetna which is described as
an interesting artsy community located at the confluence of Sustina, Chulitna, &
Talkeetna Rivers. Talkeetna has a charming Alaskan community atmosphere - log cabins, dirt streets, & general charm with the 3 rivers just at the end of
Main St. Most of the mountaineers preparing to scale Mt. McKinley are outfitted in Talkeetna & then begin their journeys with a 45 minute flight from the Talkeetna Air Strip to the Alaska Range to begin their climbs on the great mountain. On a good day there are spectacular views of Mt McKinley from the Talkeetna area but it wasn’t our good luck that day. We spent the night in a local campground as we had found ourselves a long way from
Denali and it was late in the afternoon.
It’s Tuesday now & today we are expecting the arrival of our friends, Jack & Beth Murray, from Williamsburg who decided to fly to Anchorage & drive to Denali to spend a few days with us. It should be interesting living for the 4 of us in the BF and we must not forget that Bennie takes up space as well. The Murrays will be with us till Sunday at which point all 4 of us are heading to Anchorage where they will visit the big city & areas south before flying home on the 24th. Steve & I will be visiting with a retired USMC friend of Steve’s & his wife, Lloyd & Carol Poole, who retired to Anchorage when Lloyd retired from the USMC, but currently they live summers in Anchorage & winters in CA. The Pooles’ son, Russ, has been a buddy of our son, Mike, for many years & Russ & Mike are both on the same deployment to the Middle East. They are also roommates on their ship, the Pelilieu. It’s always such a small world! The Pooles have invited us to stay with them in Anchorage & they have also arranged a fishing expedition for the 4 of us to the Russian River on the Kenai Peninsula which we will be doing next week, July 21-25. It looks like a very busy next 2 weeks for us & with all the social interaction we are joyfully looking forward to the blog updates may be in jeopardy. I will try to post interesting pictures whenever we get them & will keep note of any good tales we wish to pass along. Will be back on the blog as soon as I can.
