Hello from Teklanika campground!

Our first week at Teklanika has been great. Through Friday we had nice sunny weather and but for the mosquitos, you could stay outside in your shirtsleeves. Saturday through Monday were rain days but it really wasn’t so bad as it would rain for a bit and then the sun would peek out and then rain a little more. Dick is really enjoying himself talking to all the campers and helping them out when needed. Yesterday we had a couple come in a really big 5th wheel and a large 4 door Frieghtliner truck built for pulling his 5th wheel. Well he wasn’t paying attention and took out the bottom of his slide on a post that he hit. Fortunately it appeared to be just cosmetic damage but still costly. He could have easily made the curve but messed up. It happens…. Well then his slides would hardly come out, maybe dead batteries? Then a bit later Dick discovered that he had two generators going with a leaking gas can between them and he wasn’t even at their site!! So Dick had to rectify that situation! We do have generator hours from 8-10 am and 4-8 pm. Mostly we have had to ask people to move their tents as they are not allowed to camp off the provided gravel pads. The grass looks so inviting, I can understand why they pitch their tents where they do! The majority of our campers are in some sort of RV, a lot of pick up campers, trailers & 5th wheels and motorhomes too. The campground can accommodate RV’s to 40’ so we do get the occasional big class A in here but not too many.
This morning we had a little excitement when Dick came upon a lynx who was starring down a lady and her dog that were not all that far away from the lynx. Her dog was really well trained as she told it to sit and it did and didn’t make a sound! Ha, that would not be Chena! So the lynx and the lady just starred at each other for a minute or two and then the lynx went in the brush. Dick got a neat picture with both the lady and lynx in it. I am thinking that I will keep Chena very close to me and just walk near the camper where I have good visibility!
We makes rounds of the campground numerous times a day because we need the exercise. We are supposed to at least make rounds at 10 am and 8 pm. After our 10 am rounds today, we decided to ride the bus further into the park to see what we could see! For the last several days all the campers have been telling us about all the bears and wolves that they have seen. We didn’t have as good of luck as some of our campers but we did have a great bear viewing of a sow and her two cubs. Also saw a wolf with 2 pups but they were really far away in a gravel bed. Also saw a few caribou and sheep which have become rather ho-hum to us at this point!
I will be posting this tomorrow when we go into Fairbanks for our weekly shopping trip. We are picking up a new converter which will allow us to power the TV, stereo, charge camera batteries, make coffee without having to power up the generator. Our old converter died while we were watching Alice in Wonderland and we were just getting to the good part so I am anxious see the rest!

I am re-reading James Michner’s Alaska – it is much more relevant when you are living in the middle of the book so to speak! Not much else of interest, we are having a blast and haven’t gotten borred in the least. Wish you could be here with us!!