Still in Fairbanks

We are still in Fairbanks and enjoying playing tourist and visiting with friends.  Last night we had dinner with a friend that I used to work with when we lived here.  We had a great dinner of ribs, beer can chicken and risotto!  It was great and I love eating other people's cooking!  Our wonderful hosts:

We leave here on Friday morning heading to Denali National Park which is about 3 1/2 hours away.  We are kind of excited about this trip as we will be camping 29 miles inside the park which is kind of special.  There are only about 52 RV sites available inside the park and I never thought we'd be able to get a camping site at this late date but we lucked out on that!  You have to stay a minimum of 3 nights so we will be out of touch for a while.  No cell or Internet service.  Just us, the bears, moose and wolves!  It would be neat to hear the wolves howling as that's an Alaskan experience we've not had!  We will be allowed to drive our RV only into the camp so we will have to leave our Jeep in an overflow parking site.  The park has buses that go 90 some miles into the park and that is the only way you can visit.  You are not allowed to drive your vehicle into the park unless you are going to the campground as we are.  And for that we get a special permit that allows us to only drive in and drive out.  We will be able to use the bus system inside the park as much as we want.  The park services uses school buses and a round trip all the way into the park and out takes about 12 hours.  No food or water is available in the park and there are only pit toilets.  It is a long day to say the least!  We will pack sandwiches and bring water of course!

There is one time a year when the park allows you to drive into the park in your own vehicle and that is the weekend closest to Sept 15th.  You have to apply for a permit and the permits are chosen  in a lottery drawing and 400 vehicles a day are allowed in for a four day weekend, weather permitting.  Sometimes, weather closes the road and so you may only get in part way or not at all.  We won the lottery twice and it was a wonderful experience to drive in.  the animals seem to be very active that time of year as they are preparing for the winter that is arriving  in Denali by mid-September.

We are being lazy today, we slept in until 9 am!  I can't remember the last time I did that!!  We are going to an antique car museum in a bit.

BTW, we have driven 5232 miles in the RV so far!

Hope everyone is having a great summer, wish you were here with us!