On Saturday (July 12th) we moved about 40 miles north to Wasilla. Got a much nicer park for two nights - even had a small grass yard. Saturday afternoon we took care of domestic chores and went to Wal-Mart. The Wasilla Wal-Mart is the only SuperCenter in Alaska. LaVerne read somewhere that this store sells more duct tape than any other Wal-Mart in the world. It was a regular store until last year when they upgraded it to a Super Center - probably because of all that duct tape.
We went to church Sunday morning then went to Eagle River Nature Center a few miles south back toward Anchorage. Nice place - several trails to walk. The original Ididarod Trail comes through and we walked on it for about a mile. At one place a mother Common Merganser and some youngsters was on an abandoned beaver pond. Here’s a picture.
Yesterday (Monday, July 14th) we left Wasilla and moved north on AK Hwy 1 (the Parks Highway) about 175 miles to Cantwell. The scenery still remains awesome. We stopped at a couple of pull-outs where we were supposed to be able to see Mt. McKinley, the tallest mountain in North America at 20,320 ft, but the clouds were blocking the view.
Here is a picture taken from one of the many scenic pull-outs - you can see how cloudy it was.
Today we went sightseeing - rode about 30 miles on the Denali Highway and back. This is a gravel road that runs 135 miles across “Wild Alaska” from Cantwell to Paxson. It’s mostly uninhabited and transverses wide open tundra through the Alaska Range. There are many rivers and lakes and the scenery is spectacular! We were hoping to see lots of birds and wildlife, but only saw a few rabbits and a squirrel, plus a few birds.
Here are some pictures of the landscape along the Denali Highway.
Tomorrow it’s on to Denali National Park for a week.
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