Thursday 9/18 - Denali Park

Wind advisories in the Alaskan range!  Take them seriously.  About 4 am things were bumping and flying outside our cute little room at the Lakeview Inn.  The wind continued to howl pretty much through the morning -which canceled our walking plans but made for a cozy morning relaxing in our room with the view of the lake (and the breakers at the shore!).

After a lazy morning (well, semi-lazy, I worked on a bunch of stuff while Ed relaxed and read), we headed out to the Totem Inn, the only restaurant game in town.  Had a great breakfast of ham and cheese omelets, hash browns (yes, the real live thing, and yes, the heck with the carbs!) and rye toast.  A bonus of the Totem is that they have free wi-fi - so we connected and caught up on our emails before heading out to Denali Park for our afternoon tour.

Gave ourselves enough time to explore Glitter Gulch - the area right outside the park that held all the tourist shops and the Princess and other tour company hotels.  End of the season - and boy did it show!  All the restaurants were closed (so there went our great idea to eat at the Alaskan Fish Company for dinner!), and most of the shops were too.  Went into one souvenir place were the guy was closing up in 30 minutes and heading to Tuscan.  Ok then!  He was trying to get rid of water bottles, so we got some for 25 cents (nothing else was that good a deal!).  Ghost town....headed over to Denali for our afternoon tour.

Booked tickets for the Denali Tundra Wilderness tour online - instructions said to meet at the Wilderness Center at 1:15 for the 1:30 tour.  Remember - this is the end of the season - and we are on the last tour on the last day of the season.  So - we head to the Wilderness Center - and it's pretty much locked up, closed!  Knocked on the door and a girl answered and gave us our tickets, but told us the tour pick up wasn't until 2:10.  there was an earlier pick up at the Denali Wilderness Chalets hotel in Glitter Gulch that we could do.  So we headed to the Chalets - figuring we could waste an hour there better than sitting huddled in our car with the heat blowing.

The Chalets were hopping! There must have been about 200 people there - all Holland America - waiting for their transportation down to Anchorage.  Not a seat in the place - we hit the gift store, bought Ed a great t-shirt 40% off then hung out in the lobby waiting for our tour.  Bus pulled up at 1:45 and we hopped on with about 6 others.  Great little bus - looked like a school bus, but with padded seats and seatbelts.  Had a box lunch of summer sausage (really good!), cheese, Alaskan Potato Chips an a granola bar.  Great snack.  Headed out a little early, picked up about 8 more folks at the Wilderness center and headed out through the Park.

The Wilderness tour took us to MP 30 on the Park Road. Normally, regular passenger cars can't go past MP15 - but because it is the end of the season, cars could drive the whole 80 miles through the park.  But taking the bus was a great way to really see the park and scope for wildlife without worrying about the driving.  The scenery was beautiful = just past the peak of fall color season, but still spectacular. Our driver/guide, Joe, was informative and fun.  Our jobs were to spot out wildlife and then shout "stop" when we saw something.  As it turned out, being so late in the season, we didn't see much - but we did see a moose out in the distance, a wolf running through the fields and a couple of Lynx at a closed campground.

The tour took 4 hours and was a nice way to spend the afternoon in the Park. Joe showed us where the bus from Into the Wild was located (well, he pointed out the valley and mountain ridge across which the bus was located).  We took a walk through the forest and saw a couple of Snowshoe hares - already turning white for the winter, and just generally watched the beautiful scenery pass by.  The only disappointment was that Mt. McKinley wasn't out.  Oh well - the skies had at least cleared and there was no rain!  That was a huge bonus.

At the end of the tour, Joe handed out little guide books that were a great surprise. Explained the park and all the wildlife you find there.  We headed back to Glitter Gulch to pick up our car, and when we were dropped at the Chalets - they were all boarded up!  In less than 4 hours they had emptied out that hotel and literally boarded up the doors and windows!  End of season! 

Headed back to the B&B to freshen up - then hit the Totem for dinner (remember - it's the only game in town!!).  The Totem was slammed!  All the Princess employees were celebrating end of season in the lounge and the kitchen was backed up terribly.  We sat down to a full restaurant - waved at a family that was on the Tundra tour with us - then ordered salads.  It took over an hour to get our food - the poor waitress was so apologetic - she was totally in the weeds!  But we didn't really care, we had no where to go and nothing to do.  And the salads were surprisingly good!

After dinner - we retired to our room - did laundry (yes, Mom, I know, I know!) and watched Red Eye on DVD.  Then hit the sack in the nice soft Lakeview B&B bed.