Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Hi!

Another day in paradise! We’re still having fun here in the wilds of Denali National Park! We begin each day with a walk through the campground with Chena. By the time we have walked both campground loops, Chena has calmed down and walks on the leash like a normal dog rather than the excited, darting every whichway, dog that she usually is! She gets lots of walks throughout the day and is loving RV life!
Yesterday we rode the bus further into the park and finally we saw a wolf up close and personal. It was kind of fun as we were observing a lone grizzly bear when the wolf happened along. The bear picked up the scent of the wolf and started following the wolf. Meanwhile the wolf is “trucking” through the area giving the occasional glance over his shoulder to check on the proximity of the bear. Then the bear lost the scent and gave up the chase. Bears and wolves don’t normally fight each other, I think they are both at the top of the food chain. The only thing that bears have to fear is another bear. A male bear will kill cubs because a female bear will not mate if she has cubs.
We also saw a hare running through the brush with a coyote hot on its trail. We’re not sure if the hare escaped or not, as we lost sight of them in the brush. Other than that, it was sort of a dull day on the bus, the animals were mostly hiding out. They were probably being lazy and hiding out in the shade as yesterday was a gorgeous sunny day. Even the mountain was out for part of the day which is a treat in itself as only about 25% of the visitors to Alaska ever see Mt McKinley.
Dick stays busy during the day playing Mr. Fixit for our campers. We have a lot of first time RVers so they often need a little help. We’ve had several who have run their batteries down. NPS has given us a battery charger to help these folks out. We had another camper who thought he had no propane and he had just picked up the RV. Well, it works better if you turn the propane valve on! Many of our campers are foreign and I particularly enjoy visiting with these folks. Although foreign, many of them are living in the US right now. Had some kids that just graduated from college and they are taking the summer off before entering the workforce; good for them!
Me, I stay busy reading, scrapbooking and cooking. I bought a cast iron dutch oven to use in the fire pit. I made a beef roast in it the other day and it was really really good!
We will be heading to Fairbanks a little later today to grocery shop and hopefully get the parts we need to install the inverter. When we got back last week we discovered that we needed additional parts before installing the inverter soooooo…..we’ll try again today.
It looks like a gorgeous cloud free sunny day today, I almost hate to leave the park on days like this. We had several rainy days this week so we really appreciate these nice days!
Enough rambling, hope you are enjoying your summer!

Wolf:


2 comments:

  1. very cool, keeping enjoying!!

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  2. cool wolf!!!! :)
    thanks for the postcard.
    love,
    aleah
    ps-I got a new cat!

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