I finally got in on the 31st, a day later than I expected, due to problems with my connection.  This required me having to fly to Vancouver and then to Anchorage!

I got into Anchorage, and headed right up the Parks highway to a small town called Talkeetna.  I spent the night in this camper.

The next morning, I drove up to Denali.  This 150 mile drive took a lot longer than I expected due to a steady drizzle and road construction on the Parks.  I left Talkeetna at 7:30, which I figured would give me plenty of time, and missed my 10:15 shuttle by about five minutes.  Not to worry.  I just caught a much less crowded shuttle at 11:15.

The shuttle I chose was the Wonder Lake shuttle.  It is an 11 hour ride round trip.

On the trip, we saw caribou

bear

moose

and we got a gorgeous view of the big Kahuna itself, Denali.  Denali is the name the tribes that originally were in Alaska gave it, and it’s known as Mt. McKinley because he’s the President who established the park where it’s located.

I lucked out.  As I mentioned, on the ride up to Denali, I was thinking I was going to have bad weather.  It stopped raining, though, and the clouds cleared.  It turned out to be a gorgeous day and I was able to get a beautiful view of Denali.

After the tour, I ate dinner at a local landmark, the Salmon Bake

and then I made the drive down the Parks to Talkeetna. 

Along the way, I was reminded about how Alaska is a different world.

Where I live, there’s a gas station or two every single exit off the interstate, and they’re all 24 hour gas stations.  And if you do run out of gas, you can just call 911 on your cell and a cop will come and help you out.  And if you left your cell at home, there’s always traffic so someone will see you and you can tell them to call 911 for you.

Not in Alaska.  Even though the Parks is one of Alaska’s major highways, there are long stretches where there are no gas stations.  As for cell coverage, it’s spotty at best.  Sure, at Denali, there’s coverage.  And in Anchorage, there’s coverage as well.  But in between, it gets dicey.

Traffic?  Ha!  You’ll go stretches of five, ten, fifteen, even 30 minutes without seeing another vehicle.

So, imagine being low on gas in what may as well be a foreign land, with no cell phone coverage.  And looking at that gas gauge get closer and closer to empty, and seeing all the gas stations closed.

I finally took a chance and said the hell with it, the gas station is closed but maybe they have pay at the pump and I can get gas.

They did and I could.

The trip made for a long day.  I started driving at 7:30 and didn’t get back to Talkeetna until 2:30.