An interesting Adventure at Denali

As I mentioned before you can only drive yourself for the first 15 miles of the park. Otherwise you use the park bus system to go farther in. You can take a tour bus or a shuttle. We decided to take a shuttle instead of a formal tour. From what we understood the driver of the shuttle would give information along the way just not as much as the tour buses. Plus, you could get off and on if you wanted to hike any trails. We had visions of Zion National Park's shuttle where you can trails to a waterfall, the emerald pools, etc. It turned out that there weren't really any formal trails. Very few got offstage and on. Our driver hardily said anything. It didn't help that for the first hour of the 6 hour tour, a baby around a year old cried constantly. Maybe he was teething but why bring a baby on such a long drive where you can't walk him around or do much to settle him down. Then the bus driver did mention they saw around 11 bears the day before. We saw no wildlife at all the entire trip. Oh, we did see two birds. So though the views were impressive, this was not our favorite tour. 6 hours with only two 10 minute and one 20 minute stop the whole way and the rest of the time in the cramped bus was a little too long. I guess if we had seen wildlife it would have been worth it. Enough whining, Nikki. It is a beautiful place and the pictures below will show a little of that beauty. And it is the fourth of July and what better way to celebrate and spend time in one of the awesome areas of our great country.

 

 

 

We took another try at finding wildlife the next day and drive the 15 mile road again. No success that day either but some more views and lots of flowers. Savannah liked the flowers too and was happy not to have to stay at home like yesterday when we went on the bus.

 

 

 

One night we went to Cabin Nite Dinner Theater. It was a family style dinner with ribs and salmon, which was pretty good. The wait persons were also the entertainers. They had beautiful voices and told tales of the Gold Rush days in the early 1900's. We weren't sure what to expect but it was fun.

 

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Denali National Park

Tuesday we left Chena Hot Springs and drove to our next destination, Denali RV Resort and Motel. It is a good base from which to explore Denali National Park. This national park was established in 1917 as Mount McKinley National Park but Renamed Denali in 1980. During the summer months visitors can only drive the first 15 miles and need to take a shuttle bus or tour bus the rest of the way. the first day we did the 15 mile drive in our car. I

 

 

 

 

We got to the end. Picture below is of one of the tour buses.

 

 

 

we didn't see any wildlife until we just passed the visitor center on the way eback.

We then saw a moose and her two babies.

 

 

Tomorrow we will will go on a tour or shuttle.

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Hot and Cold at Chena Hot Springs

We left Fairbanks and headed up Chena Hot Springs Road which is a 57 mile road that begins about 5 miles outside of Fairbanks. Our destination is Chena Hot Springs Resort and is at the end of the scenic road. We saw a Moose or two on the way but that was it for wildlife. The springs at the resort were found in 1905 and  people have been coming here ever since. It is known worldwide for its legendary healing waters and is especially popular in the winter due to its many viewings of the Aurora Borealis. The resort has hotel rooms as well as rv sites, a restaurant and bar, indoor and outdoor pools and an ice museum with ice bar. We stayed tucked into one of the treed sites. Really tucked in.

                                                                   
The resort is nicely landscaped with flowers everywhere. They have horses to ride and tours of the ice museum and a dog kennel tour with sled dog rides. They are into renewable energy and have greenhouses in which they grow some vegetables and herbs that they use in their restaurant. They are making use of the first low temperature binary geothermal power plant built in Alaska and have several projects in process, including production and use of hydrogen and vegetable oil for fuel. We took advantage of their outdoor pool which is surrounded by rocks and though not real hot was very nice and relaxing. They have an indoor pool and several indoor and outdoor hot tubs as well.

                                                             







 However, our favorite thing we did here was take the Ice Museum tour. We ran through the rain(yes, more rain) and put on big heavy parkas before entering the building as it is set at about 20 degrees. The main architect of most of the art is 15 time World Ice Art Champion Steve Brice and his six times champion wife, Heather Brice. It is just amazing what they can do, creating an ice bar, overhead chandeliers made of individually carved ice crystals which change color every six seconds to mimic the northern lights.

                                                                   

                                                                 

                                                                             
 

                                                                                   

     We paid extra for a drink at the ice bar, a delicious appletini served in a carved martini glass. The seats, which of course are also carved from ice, have warm seats as they are covered in fur, as is the bed.

                                                                       

                 

                                                                         

     Below are the talented ice artists at work.  Just making the hundreds of martini glasses used weekly along keeps them busy. Most people broke theirs outside but we kept ours putting them in the freezer until we get some martini ingredients and use them one more time.