Day 7, On the Road to Denali.....

(Sparky apologizes for dropping off the face of the earth briefly to start teaching and forgetting to finish the Alaska blog posts!) 

Sparky and Eldo....We thought you were headed to Anchorage to return the RV!!!! Not yet, we had a full day and a half left to go...we were going to just hang out in and around Anchorage, but ole Eldo is fabulous for spur of the moment ideas. All Sparky had to say was, wishfully thinking out loud, "Gee, wouldn't it be cool to go to Denali one last time?" Eldo says, "Well, we could." So we did! We headed BACK towards Denali, passing through Wasilla...nice size town, a Fred Meyer store there, plenty of places to get gas, easy in and out....On the way to Denali is South View Campground, in Denali State Park, about MM135. (MM is "mile marker", see the Milepost Directory for Alaska for indispensable information about where to stop, where to get gas, road conditions and where the pullouts are.)

We got to Denali National Park around 2:30 in the afternoon...We were milling around the village center, thinking "Should we take a tour or not?" It was too late to take the 8 hour tour, so we decided to get on a shorter bus tour. We had done the long one before last year and saw lots of wildlife, so we thought, let's do it again, only the shorter one! To cement the deal, a lady who got off from a previous trip out to Toklat said they saw EIGHT grizzlies! Done deal! We're going! We took the Toklat bus tour--53 miles one way, 6.5 hours round trip, with Brian as our bus driver. He was very knowledgable and environmentally thoughtful about wildlife, as all Denali drivers are! There are rest stops along the way...

This is one of the best trips you can take when visiting Denali, in our humble opinion. You almost always see wildlife, the scenery is 
spectacular, and the bus drive by a knowledgable guide gets you farther back into the park than you can get on your own. The road is NARROW and harrowing at times. If you are a little on the squeamish side as far as narrowing winding roadways and drop offs, this might not be for you. It was SCARY looking out at the window when another bus passed us on the road, and we had to scoot over. But look at what you might see!
                Caribou....


Ptarmigan...those grouse type of birds, smaller than a turkey, around the size of a chicken...in a bush, in a tree, wherever they may be.....Not in Sparky's camera range at the moment, but we saw three that day...And vista after vista...

And then....FOUR grizzlies within 5 minutes...A courting couple, too far away to get good photos, and THIS....all of sudden, the driver slows down and comes to a complete stop. The bus gets totally quiet, and he points directly ahead, to a mama grizzly and about a two year old cub. They were walking alongside the road and passed right to the side of the bus! We were all shocked and awed by the sight and closeness of the bears.

Here's another shot...

We were thrilled, to say the least....Happily, we headed back to Denali bus headquarters and returned by 9:15PM. We saw more moose, sort of a last hurrah, (our last night in Alaska) as we passed through some more of Denali State Park on our way back.

Of course, it's still as light as daylight out, so we decided to hit the road toward Anchorage and drive as far as we could, as we had to turn in our rental rig the next day. We would have no problem finding a pullout along the way to rest and get some sleep.....Around midnight, we were still driving, and the moose were still actively out and about, one running right alongside the highway! It's like deer in Indiana...only you have to watch out for BIG MOOSE who might decided to suddenly turn and cross the highway, for whatever reason!

We used our Mileposts directory to find a spot to pull over for the night, er, day, er...it was about 1:00 AM when we pulled over to sleep. We were so tired the light didn't bother us and promptly fell asleep. Up and at 'em at 6:00 AM....and back to the rental place...
Eldy had driven over 1,568 miles in our week in Alaska! He would have made a terrific trucker! We had a fantastic week renting an RV...no problems, the company was fantastic, Great Alaskan Holidays. We highly recommend them...up to date units, excellent customer service, and top notch experience all the way around. Thanks for stopping by to read our blog...we hope to be traveling again next summer, who knows where!? (Sparky votes for Alaska......) Until next time.....See ya....

                                       Eldo and Sparky