Denali National Park to Anchorage, Alaska
It’s such a shame that we had to leave Denali on a sunny morning! But, off we went at 9:00, heading south on the George Parks Highway towards Anchorage.
About 40 minutes later, I stopped at one of my secret spots, a large complex of beaver dams.
Construction of this dam, the largest, was started in the early 1990s. I discovered it while exploring on my own when I was running an empty bus to Anchorage to pick up a group there. We occasionally see beavers there, but no luck yesterday.
Denali was looking like she could cloud over any minute, so I stopped at the first good viewing opportunity, on the shoulder of the highway in Broad Pass.
Some of the folks got good photos of this fox with a road-killed squirrel but I arrived a few seconds too late.
Our next stop was at the Alaska Veterans Memorial. I donated several photos of this memorial to a book project – Warriors Remembered, about memorials to Vietnam vets, was published last Fall.
Denali was quite misted over by then (11:25) so it doesn’t show in this photo that the Territorial Guard member’s binoculars are trained on her.
I’d changed our lunch stop last night in the hope that Denali would be visible, and it worked out beautifully. Good food and a wonderful view are a fine combination 🙂
Our final stop was at the Iditarod sled dog race headquarters at Wasilla.
Taking a photo with an iPad sure looks funny, but makes emailing photos very simple.
I got my puppy fix, too 🙂
A new husky has been added. This is Rick Swenson’s dog “Andy” – while interesting, I find having your best dog stuffed and put on display to be a little creepy, too.
We reached The Historic Anchorage Hotel at 4:30. This is one of my favourite properties – a lovely old hotel in the best location in Anchorage. This is the Laurence Suite.
I finished off the day with dinner across the street at an excellent pub, Rumrunners, then did some major shopping at JC Penney – their sales are pretty tough to beat. 🙂
About The Author
