Big Cashew Adventure - Day 16 All Hail Denali

Yes, as you might have surmised, we are at Denali, or actually, in Denali.  There is a town just north of the Denali NP called Denali.  That is where we are at the moment.  At a site called Rainbow RV and Motel.  A small town, made up mostly of shops and excursion type business, such as for running the rapids, sightseeing by Helicopter, and exploring with a jeep Safari.  Of course we do not have any of those on our list of to-do's.  And we will get into what we are doing, but first a word or hundreds on today's happenings, or lack of same.

Since we were staying to see a few sights that did not open until 9 or so, it was a slight sleep in morning.  I slept in all the way until 6 AM.  Then got up, make my tea, using Red Rose as I ran out of Lipton, for shame, and worked on yesterday's blog.  Chiara stayed in bed until after 7:30, but finally got up and made me breakfast.  That will come to he who waits!  Had cheesy eggs, toast and my remaining tea.  I then  took a shower, we got dressed, closed up the site and headed out.  It was after 9 so we headed for the Farmers Market.  This small gathering near the fairgrounds is just that and more.  There are fruits and vegetables, although you wonder where they came from.  The growing season hear is barely late May to August.  That is all the time you can usually depend on no frosts.  They had cucumbers, tomato plants, and a number of herbs.  But even though it was a farmers market, at least 60 percent of the booths had nothing to do with farming.  Lots of nick knacks like local jewelry, hand made place sets, hot pot holders of NFL teams, t-shirts, carved wood items, jams and jellies, honey and other food stuffs.  We were there for about 40 minutes and then moved on.  Next stop was another game preserve.  It will not open until June, but you could see Oxen in the pen that was near the road.  There was supposed to be a 3-4 week old baby but we did not see it.  Moving along, we decided to get the little lady and espresso at this one coffee shop.

While we waited on line, the lady in front of us had seen us pull up with a RV and asked some questions about it and what you need to expect.  We gave her the low down on this particular RV,  She stated she was organizing a trip with and RV with the family and her father.  We stated that although it is designed for up to 8 people, there should be no more than three or four, tops.  It is just to cramped.  Chiara was disappointed with the Espresso while I drank my British Breakfast tea.  It was not bad.

We next headed to Pioneer Village.  This is more of a playground than a historical site, but there were some interesting points.  This 'village'is made up of mostly original houses or cabins when Fairbanks was first settled in 1901 and the name was accepted a year later.  It was more of a trading facility and stop for panhandlers when gold was discovered 20 miles north.  The town grew from that time and eventually became Alaska's second largest city.  The cabins in Pioneer Village, as noted earlier, are mostly original.  I took a number of pictures.  They have some color to them and many are now shops for local businesses.  There was a kids jamboree when we got there so we just walked around for a little while.  We had some ice cream and then headed back to the RV for the drive to Denali.  First there was a stop at Fred Myers for some quick food shopping.  I got gas while waiting.  We made one more stop for wine and then we turned south and said good bye to Fairbanks/

Denali is 115 miles from Fairbanks so it was about a 2 hour + trip.  We stopped in a town called Healy, as I found a Catholic Church that serves mass on Sunday and wanted to see where it actually was located.  They are few and far between in this part of the state.  One church states they have a service but there is no priest, only a deacon.  A deacon cannot say mass.  But I digress.

We got to Denali around 4 and drove in.  We first went to the visitor center.  Things are changed since I was last here.  Newer buildings and better lay out.  We went in and talked to a Ranger.  We found out that unlike summer time when you cannot drive past the 3 mile marker, we can drive to the 15 mile marker.  Not much farther but a little.  The shuttle buses are running but only to about the 56 mile marker, then they return.  We signed up for a Sunday trip starting at 1 PM.  They last up to 7 hours.  Lets hope we see lots of wildlife.  We will stay til Monday so we will be back to the Park Monday morning and see the dog sled demonstration.  Maybe then drive our allotted 15 miles befoer heading south.  We will see.

RV site is just a completely open parking lot with the hookups.  No trees or anything, but it covers the need.  So that about takes care of this blog.  Hope I haven't bored you too much.  We are in the hoime stretch.  I am sad and glad.  The trip has been exhausting, but interesting.  Chat later about today.