Mt.McKinley earlier today. We just missed seeing it so I swiped this picture from someone else’s Facebook page.
One of my favorite flowers, fireweed. We should see a ton of it when we are on the Kenai Peninsula in a couple days. The natives say when the buds at the top of the plant are gone, summer is over.
The Parks Highway follows the Nenana River for quite a long distance. The river is a grayish color from glacial silt.
Our draft horses King and Duke. They took us all over the mountain trail on the covered wagon.
More of the river bed
We saw a mama moose and her twins on the ATV ride.
Tundra golf. Yup.. that’s the fairway behind us.
The green on the sixth hole.
Always such a special place
We left Fairbanks Wednesday and spent the next three days at the Denali Rainbow RV Park in the Denali Canyon. The campground is located about a 15 minute drive south of Healy, AK. The location was perfect with a nice selection of gift shops, coffee shops and restaurants next door and the Princess Lodge right across the street. We ate two of the restaurants at the Princess Lodge while we were there.
Mt.McKinley National Park is one of the most beautiful places on this planet. The landscape is just breathtakingly beautiful. I can see God’s hands all over it. It’s one of my favorite places in the world/
It’s said that only 30% of the people who visit Mt. McKinley National Park actually see Mt. McKinley. We were told it was visible this morning but by the time we got close, clouds had rolled in and we could only see the closer mountains. It’s common for clouds to hide the mountain in the summer when warm air passes over the mountain and it’s completely snow covered. I swiped the picture to the right off a Facebook post from our RV Alaska group. Someone in the group was able to take a picture earlier today before the clouds hid the mountain.
We decided to try to squeeze in as many fun things to do as possible in the three days we were at the park. Thursday, we went for a covered wagon ride on the north edge of the park near Healy. It was beautiful! We were also served a real good lunch in a remote cabin setting and had a special visitor (moose) stop by while we were eating.
Thursday night we went back to Healy for a “sunset” ATV ride. That was a blast! The sun didn’t actually set on our ride since we had 20+ hours of daylight. We rode in a guided group for about 1.5 hours and covered over ten miles and two mountain ridges and rode through a river below the ridges. We got a little wet but it was so worth it!
Friday we went back to Healy one more time for a round of tundra golf. It’s probably the most unique course we have ever played. Most of the year the course is under a ton of snow and frozen by temps that are -50 degrees for two months straight. For a few short months each summer, they’re able to cut the fairways and greens into the tundra for a unique golf experience. Basically it’s like a cow pasture except the fairways don’t have much grass, just the ground cover that grows on tundra in the summer. It was fun and challenging but definitely not a PGA quality course. We had a blast though.
Today we drove 3.5 hours south on the Parks Highway to Palmer, AK. I have a friend who’s a pastor with a church in Palmer. We are going to go to service at his church tomorrow and visit for a bit. It will be nice to catch up and meet his family.
So far, this trip has been everything I’ve hoped it would be. It’s really a trip of a lifetime for Greg and me and a serious trip down memory lane for me. I haven’t been able to wipe the smile off my face since we got here.
The Alaska Railroad running across the canyon from our RV park.
Sunset ATV ride near Healy, AK. We were a little wet from riding through the river.
The hills look like sand dunes but they are glacial silt deposited by receding glaciers thousands of years ago.
Birch beer is a new favorite of mine. It reminds me of cream soda. It was real good.
One more guilty pleasure. Greg had a chocolate milkshake. I had a Captain My Captain. Legend has it, they are calorie free. I’ll take their word for it.
