Travel day to Denali National Park

Trip Start Aug 16, 2008

Trip End Aug 29, 2008

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Where I stayed

Denali Suites Healy

(Healy hotels)

Flag of United States Healy, Alaska, United States
Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Today was a travel day to Denali National Park. Our accommodations are at the Denali Suites, a converted apartment building in Healy, AK, about 10 minutes north of the park. We have a three bedroom suite, with two full baths. It's quite nice and comfortable. It's very quiet, and we were told there are moose roaming the grounds, so we'll keep you posted.

Well, back to our trip north to Denali. We awoke this morning scrambling to get our things together and out the door before 8:00. We first stopped at the resort to complete and post our latest blog.

We had lunch along the way at the Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge. It was touted as the best chance to view Mt. McKinley. The mountain, however, was clouded over, so we could not see it. Hopefully tomorrow we will have a clear view.

We were off then to the small town north called Talkeetna. The TV show, Northern Exposure, was supposedly based upon this town. It was charming, and had small town restaurants and gift shops up and down this two street town. We stayed about a half hour browsing the two or three shops along the way.

Then it was off to Denali Park

Ron Looking Dapper for a Touron

. We stopped at the visitor center to retrieve some park information, and looked at the different exhibits they have there. We then went to watch a short movie.

By this time, it was dinner time. We found a pizza parlor, Lynx Restaurant by the Princess Lodge which was fine for pizza. Across the street were some shops offering their souvenirs 50% off. Of course we could not pass up the 50% off clearance sign, so we took the next hour or so shopping for gifts.

It was time to check into our accommodations for the evening. We were really excited to find they had free wi-fi here. Also, we did see our first animal at one of our hotels - it was a bunny!!!! Maybe that's a good sign.

So we're all talking about getting to bed early, because we have to be at the Denali Chalet Resort at 6:40 a.m. for our 7:00 a.m. 13 hour tour of the Denali Park. We are to board a bus, because private cars are not allowed in the park beyond a certain point. We will be having lunch at a half-way point in Kantishna. We have been told we will see all sorts of animals. Well, good night from Denali, and we can't wait to tell you all about our animal sightings tomorrow.