The 2nd Half Lazzies

I've come to realize that about halfway through a trip, I tend to lose all discipline and go from daily, to 2-3 day, to weekly and then never finish the trip blog.  (The winter Florida trip STILL isn't done.)

Well, today's post is a catch up of the past week, which has covered a lot of miles.

The first day was a 268 run from Valdez to Wasilla where the closest tire store was located.  In Valdez, I did buy a junk tire from "Mark" who had several shipping containers of used tires out in back of Mark's Auto Repair, the only "repair shop" in 268 miles too.  (I've had two trips over the years where we had 2 flats at the same time, in the middle of nowhere, and that is NO fun.)

We'll spare everyone the reverse view of all the photos we took on the way into Valdez on the last blog.  (Excluding the below shots which were pretty decent.)

On arrival Wasilla we had to stop at one of the 8-10 quilt shops from a list some nice lady had given Val down in Valdez.  Alaskans are Sooooo friendly.  THEN we got our new tire.

Another quilt shop in Talkeetna.  (Dirt streets and me and the dog relegated to the front stoop.)

Bet you've never seen a John Deere ice cream maker before.

Also bet you've never had birch tree syrup either.  Porcupines and moose probably love it.

From Talkeetna we continued north to Denali Nat'l Park with the tallest mountain in the US at 20,000 feet and change..  

A sneak peek at Denali, which is notoriously elusive.  We waited around for about an hour to see just this momentary view of it.

We also found out that moose are like the squirrels in the Geico commercials.  They just love to come charging out of the trees just to scare the #$^%#^ out of you.  This same moose did it twice, once on the way in and again on the way out of the park.

Vanessa - Is THIS close enough??

Aside from the mountain itself, the most impressive aspect of Denali NP is the sheer immensity of the place at over 6 million acres of pure wilderness with a single dirt road running 92 miles into it and then back out the way you came in.  No private vehicles and a 12 hour bus ride. (OH, my butt.)

 On our walks, she kept telling me to go out in front so she could take pictures of her handsome husband.

And then periodically whisper sweet nothings in my ear.

Though not as much as we'd hoped for, we did see 5 grizzlies during our visit.

And no, it's not a ground squirrel, it's a long distance caribou.

Then an afternoon hike in the rain.

 

Notice who's still in the lead?

Finally, some commanding views of the mountain... like a huge white space ship rising from beyond the surrounding hills.

After three days in Denali, we backtrack to Anchorage then further south to Portage where tomorrow we hope to take a boat ride to Portage Glacier and a hike to Byron Glacier.

View from the campground.

Good Night from Willawa CG, near Portage AK.

Brad & Val

Note - Portage is actually no more.  It got swallowed up in the 1964 earthquake.