Adventure Caravans – TooBusyForWork

My totally personal view of RV caravans

I wanted to summarize my personal thoughts on RV caravans. Let me emphasize that again – my personal views. These comments are based on the one and only caravan I have ever been on, the 63 day trip to western Canada and Alaska. So take it for what it is worth, perhaps very little!

We signed up for this caravan after our planned trips (sans caravan) in 2020 and 2021 were cancelled due to COVID. We were really worried that with three years of demand we wouldn’t be able to find places to stay or get into attractions we were interested in. It turns out the increase in diesel prices kept a lot of people closer to home this year. Few campgrounds were completely full, and there were nearby options for the ones who were. Oh well, live and learn.

Good things:

Everything is set up for you, and you need to plan very little. This is particularly good if you are new at RVing or new at long trips. I would say well over half of the folks were in the “newer” category, though some had been full-timing for years. We had travel booklets with routes identified in detail.

Lots and lots of full hookup campsites and even more electric/water sites. We have never in our life stayed at so many serviced campsites in the period!

Lots of built in social activities if you choose to participate. Things like drinks around the fire or dinner at a local restaurant.

A good wagon master is well organized, keeps people informed, provides alternatives if an activity isn’t appropriate for an individual. We had travel briefings every 2-3 days to discuss the details of the next few days travel and planned activities. The wagon master also confirmed our campgrounds and directed us to our sites when we arrived. Our wagon master was amazingly organized. He was retired military man, and it showed.

The tail gunner can be extremely helpful if you have trouble on the road. Every morning he went by all the rigs thumping tires to give a brief check. At the start of the trip, he crawled under everyone’s rigs checking out undercarriages, springs, shackles, etc. We had a few people come down with serious rig issues on the road, and the tail gunner stayed with them until they got to the campsite or had service arranged.

The activities that a group can get are more varied than an individual can get. For example, we had guides when individuals did not, for example on an old riverboat. We were allowed into special areas that weren’t open to the public, like a puffin exhibit at an aquarium. We got a special viewing of sled dogs and a presentation that others did not, and there were other things. The bus trips were nice since we got an entire bus to ourselves and the trips were customized to our group.

Now for the not so good things.

With all that planning there were times I really wanted to stay longer or stay less long at certain places. There is significant rigidity in the schedule. And I found the schedule,rushed. I would have taken at least half again as long for the trip, maybe twice as long. It was more of a sample rather than in-depth, even at 63 days.

Some of the activities were of zero value to us. For example, we spent lots of time at coastal towns where the main activity was fishing. The thing is, we aren’t anglers! These are very small places that can be well explored in a day or two, but we stayed longer.

While the social butterflies were extremely happy, I found all the emphasis on group socialization a bit uncomfortable. We are more introverted, and we are used to solitary camping in a wide variety of places. There were a few days where I just hid in the camper because I was overwhelmed and “peopled” out!

I got tired of the complaints people had about the campsites. We were in fairly remote areas much of the time, and campground amenities weren’t 4* except in a very few places. If we had electrical service, it was almost always 30 amp. They didn’t tell us this when we signed up, but they did tell us in the preparatory emails we got a month or so ahead of time. Those with full electric rigs that need 50 amp struggled some, and a few of them (ok, one in particular) whined on a regular basis. I think this fits in with the item above – no control over who we were around.

Summary: We won’t do a caravan again. I am just too solitary a creature to enjoy the forced company of others quite so much. I will happily trade the special group activities for the flexibility of staying as long as we want where we want. While I recognize the value a caravan trip might have for many, it just wasn’t our cup of tea. Oh, and I don’t think Adventure Caravans, the company we went through, is significantly different than Fantasy. It wasn’t Adventure Caravan’s fault that we just aren’t caravan people. They did exactly what they said they were going to do, so I won’t fault them.

Valdez, back to Destruction Bay, and on to Skagway

We didn’t have good data service in Valdez so I didn’t post anything there. Therefore a lot to catch up on!

Oh, and it rained again. Pretty much continuously. Have I mentioned that I am so, so tired of rain? We had a big glacier and wildlife tour booked with Stan Steven’s company, and it pretty much rained the entire time. There were a few limited periods of just fog/haze, but it mostly rained. We also went on a day when a major gale was headed our way, so the captain had to get a bit creative with our routing. We did get to see some lovely things though.

Turns out sea lions will perch just about anywhere

In the lee of a bigger island, this one had clear glass for a reflection

This guy must not have wanted his whiskers or tail to get cold

The glacier is still growing as evidenced by the trees being swallowed on the left

Yes, it is hard to see some of the things through the fog. It was harder to get pictures of other things we saw – sea otters in small and large groups, puffins all over the place, and we even saw a small group of orcas. There were three of them, but Kevin only got this one picture by accident. They were a long way away and pretty fast.

Notice I said “Kevin got only this one picture.” Turns out my camera really has given up the ghost! Too many times it fell off the cabinet I guess. The majority of my pictures from now on will be from my phone or Kevin’s camera. I can’t find the camera I want anywhere in Alaska outside of Fairbanks, and I am definitely not driving back that far! I will order one when we get home. The trip really was enjoyable, but it would have been much better in nicer weather.

We had a free day in Valdez, and we used it doing some sightseeing. We drove up Thompson Pass, the snowiest in Alaska. It was too foggy for good pictures. We stopped by this historic site in the canyon below Thompson Pass. In 1906 multiple railroad companies were fighting for railroad rights from Valdez to the massive Kennicott mine.one group dug this partially completed tunnel, but the effort was abandoned when a gunfight broke out between the groups. Interesting story about very wild times.

We also spent a few hours at the Solomon Gulch Fish Hatchery in Valdez, hoping to see bears catching salmon as they came through the fish ladder there. The hatchery itself was interesting. There are so, so, so many fish! I had never seen a salmon run before. At the bottom of the weir that exists to funnel the fish to the fish ladder, the fish are almost a solid mass.

Just one small part of the thousands of salmon

There were other hunters besides bears pigging out on the salmon though. We saw numerous sea lions eating their fill. They would go under water, looking almost like a lot, then come up with a fish in their mouths. They tossed the fish in the air to get it positioned for their mouth, then the swallowed it.

And another one of the videos that are annoying in this blog, but worth the click. Keep the sound on to hear the thousands of gulls too. They were feasting too.

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We did finally see one bear, but he wasn’t right by the hatchery. There were still lots of fish for him though until people spooked him. He is on shore in this picture, but he wandered out into the water to do some catching a bit after this was taken. Oh, and it was raining again.

After Valdez we headed back to Tok, staying in the same place as before. We then had to drive the road from HELL that is the Alaska highway between Tok and Destruction Bay. It was actually worse than our first trip through due to more frost heaves. I have never been so glad to see an uneven gravel parking lot in all my days! The views were pretty spectacular.

The weather had cleared up as soon as we headed away from the coast. The drive to Tok was nice, and the views of the drive to Destruction Bay were nice too, but I was concentrating too much on not shaking my motorhome apart to take pictures. The one above is from our “campground” – a gravel lot. Note the colors in the hills. Autumn has arrived in the Alaska and Canadian hill country. We did have to cross the Canadian border again, and this time it took almost an hour. That’s what we get for crossing on a Saturday! A nice border agent, just a lot of vehicles.

I will leave the description of the drive we took today to arrive in Skagway, AK along with those adventures for another post after we have completed some of our planned activities here. I will say that it only sprinkled on us some this first night in Skagway!

Along the way to Valdez

I seldom post on travel days, but today was the most beautiful we have experienced on the trip. While Banff and Jasper were gorgeous, they can’t compare to the huge peaks surrounding us on all sides while we drive along the river bottom. These mountains were sculpted by glaciers, and they are craggy and rough. I tried to get pictures, but with the flat, cloudy light (yes, it clouded over again!) none of them come close to replicating what I saw. Mountains were piled upon mountains, many being 12,000-14,000’ high. They seem higher since we were only t 1000’ – 2000’. I wish I could show you.

We did see glacier after glacier again.

There we’re lots and lots of much smaller glaciers along the way plus one larger one I couldn’t get a safe spot to photograph. These two are the big touristy ones.

We also visited one of the visitor centers for Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve. This is the largest national park in the US with over 13M acres in the park and another 4.8M acres in the preserve. The park by itself makes up 15% of the total acres of the entire national park system! Sadly the native cultural center was closed, but they did have a fish wheel outside. When the salmon are running upriver to spawn, they truly just swim into the basket and get dumped into the box!

The last canyon before we reached Valdez is not far below Thompson Pass. The pass is the snowiest place in the US averaging 500” of snow a year. It had odd road markers well above our heads for plowing! The canyon is the repository of all that snow, and is deeply carved by the runoff. It is so full of waterfalls that you see multiples everywhere you look. The most famous are Bridal Veil and Horsetail Falls. They have huge pull offs to handle the sightseeing visitors.

Next to the pull off for Bridal Veil Falls there was this cute little spring gushing out of the wall drilled out for the road.

We are staying in the Bear Paw Adult Campground. There are only a couple dozen sites here, but they have a nearby family campground with many, many more. It is very crowded with all our big rigs parked in here. This is much quieter, and our site is right on the harbor entrance. We sat outside a while just watching the commercial and private boats move in and out of the harbor. There is separate docking for the massive oil tankers that move the 2,000,000 barrels of oil that comes from the Trans-Alaska Pipeline every day. Tomorrow we go on a wildlife/glacier cruise. I hope the weather stays dry.

Palmer, AK

First an important announcement: Today it did not rain!

Now to our story …

We arrived in Palmer on Sunday, 21 August, after a fairly short drive. We didn’t do much after we arrived, just took naps and went out to eat in the evening. We decided it had been so long since we last ate fast food, we decided to eat at Wendy’s! It sounds ridiculous, but I was so tired of monster restaurant burgers and huge portions we end up having for lunch the next day. I wish American restaurants would just have nice, realistic portions. Sigh.

It was a good thing we took it easy Sunday, because we did nothing but run around on Monday, 22 August. We started with a tour of the Colony House Museum, a restored house from the Matanuska Colony, a New Deal resettlement that brought 204 families from the northern reaches of the Midwest to settle in Alaska. It was both to help the families recover, and, more importantly to the US Government, increase the population of a very sparsely settled territory that seemed in some danger from other countries. It was a fascinating study in community with centralized government, utilities, and stores while each family was given 40 acres of land, a house, a barn, moving expenses, and living expenses for what amounted to a year while they got their farms established. The valley where Palmer is located is unusual. It has great soil, but was heavily forested. The growing season is short, but the long days of sunlight give plants an extra boost. They have had cabbages weight 100 pounds and rutabagas weight 50 pounds! We also got a walking tour of the old colony area. Quite interesting. And the scenery surrounding us is spectacular!

Looking down the street in each direction

After the tours we had lunch at the Colony Alehouse, located in the historic old colony storehouse. We had a brief break then we went to the only Musk Ox farm in the world. I had really wanted to see musk ox in the wild, but we weren’t going to be far enough north. This was a good second choice. Note the farm trims the horns for the animal’s safety. They have a tendency to roughhouse with each other, and the sharp horns can cause damage.

Mature musk oxen have a helmet style of horn.

Young ones have horns, but not the full helmet yet

The animals weren’t as large as I expected them to be. They are left overs from the last ice age where they coexisted with megafauna like mastodons! These are maybe 600 pounds full grown, significantly smaller than a bison.

After the musk ox, we went to the Independence Mine State Historical Site. Fascinating place! As with almost all the mines in Alaska, this one existed to mine gold. It was immensely profitable in its heyday, but it closed down in 1951. They basically just walked away from it, so it still has a large number of historic buildings and a reasonable amount of machinery. The mill was removed and other accessory machinery, but you can still see an awful lot even with the 70+ hard Alaska winters since.

This boarding house for the miners has been renovated.

The mine supervisor’s home, now the Visitor Center

But not everything made it through unscathed

We were sorry we couldn’t have been here for the few tours they do each day, but the self-guided tour was still enjoyable. The spot had great interpretive signage to put it in context.

And just like most of the places we have seen, there were glaciers.

Of course there is a glacier in the distance!

We were only at 3500’, but it was obvious that autumn was beginning.

Tomorrow we go to Valdez, another coastal town.

Last few days in Seward

I am really getting tired of coastal Alaska! I am naturally a desert girl, craving dry air, and all it has done for days and days is rain. They tell me coastal Alaska generally gets significant rain in August, this continuous weeks long deluge is quite unusual. Doesn’t matter to me whether it is usual or not, I am OVER it! We have to put our bath towels in the dryer after a shower or they don’t dry by the next morning. I have to wash towels and the bath mat with a bit of bleach every few days or they smell musty, even after drying. The inside windows of the motorhome fog up if we don’t leave our vents open, and we sometimes need to open a window even at 50 degrees. Ugh. I kind of feel like this stump I photographed in this temperate rainforest.

We have done some enjoyable activities though, as much as I complain about the rain. We arrived on Wednesday, and Thursday we went to the Alaska Sealife Center. Fabulous place. One of the advantages of being in a caravan is we have access to programs given only to groups that book in advance. Here we got “The Puffin Experience” which was an aviculturist (bird specialist) talk to us about Alcids, the birds like Puffins that live on the open ocean but come ashore to nest. It was special because the aviary is actually completely closed to regular visitors because of the avian flu that has been killing birds all over the continent. (It is also the reason no eggs or fresh chicken allowed across any border right now!) We got to see a Rhinoceros Auklet up close. This bird was hand reared at the Center, and believes people are its same species so they use it in public shows. You can see some of the infection precautions – masks on all humans (including us), sanitizing wipes sized liberally, and gloves. We also had to walk on a sanitizing mat to make sure our shoes didn’t bring the avian flu into the Center. The demo bird is also kept away from the rest of the aviary. The pictures show clearly why the bird got its common name.

We also went through the fabulous aquarium with all kinds of Alaskan sealife. Oh, and they have a great gift shop! A few things just might have come home with me …

After the Sealife Center we had lunch then went to the Idadride. That isn’t a typo. It is a fun activity operated by a 2 time Iditarod winner to showcase his dogs and keep them in training in the summer. We got an introduction to the gear an Iditarod racer uses, got to pet some adorable puppies, and then we were taken for a ride in a wheeled cart pulled by 14 dogs! Fabulous place.

The kennels. Open runs instead of chains like we saw before

And puppies will be puppies (6 weeks old)

Adolescent dog (11 months) just beginning training plus his musher and her gear

A view of partially harnessed dogs and the carts

These dogs runs 50 miles pulling a 300 pound sled while racing, but in the summer they also train with a 3000 pound cart (including the 8 visitors and the musher) for a bit less than 2 miles. They were quiet until the last dog was harnessed, and then they started howling to GO! Click to watch a bit of them pulling the cart.

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Yesterday we took a four hour Kenai Fjords wildlife boat tour with Major Marine Tours. We saw lots of wildlife, but I have very few pictures to prove it! We saw bald eagles, both adults and two fledglings sitting on the side of their nest; puffins by the dozens, both fringed and horned; common murres, also by the dozens; sea otters, also dozens; and nice groupings o harbor seals and Steller sea lions. We even got a glimpse of some orcas! I sat inside most of the time because it was, of course, raining, but trust me, I did see them all! They were all clear through the binoculars, but between rain and distance, my camera just wasn’t cutting it.

Today we did exciting things like 4 loads of laundry! I also finished the baby quilt I have been working on. I found a nice laundry in Palmer, tomorrow’s destination. I will wash it, and ship it from there.

Homer and then to Seward

We had a great time on our wildlife tour on Monday, 15 August. We went with Coldwater Tours, but I bet the same basic tour is available from other vendors. The boat was quite nice, and our captain Zach knew a lot about the birds. It wasn’t a narrated trip with him talking about the history or geography, but he pointed out animals along the way, and he really seemed to enjoy discussing the birds. He was very cautious not to disturb wildlife, and I appreciated that. We also absolutely lucked out with the weather! It has been raining for days, but we didn’t get rained on even once on the trip.

First some basic landscapes.

Don’t you think this could sail to the south?

Very spooky clouds covering the mountain tops

A moment of clarity to see a mountain top and glacier

Now to the animals. Our first was this bald eagle posing for us.

We saw a harbor seal who got stuck on rocks at high tide and could get safely off at the lower tide we were in. We stayed well off the point he was on so as to not scare him. The only picture I took just shows a blog of light color on dark rocks, so I won’t insult you with it. We also saw lots and lots of sea otters. Most were just floating on their backs to watch us.

We saw a bunch of jelly fish, all orange like the one below. They ranged in size from a small 2-3” to 9” plus. This one was about 6” in diameter.

And then there were the birds! Lots of birds. All kinds of gulls plus puffins! There were two rocky outcroppings used as nesting areas for a variety of gulls and other birds. The eggs are just laid on the bare rock in a crevice just big enough to hold them. The captain said the eggs are not round but pointed so they don’t roll off as easy. You can see the spots where the nests had been by the droppings and sometimes a dab of seaweed.

More exciting than gulls were the puffins! We saw both a crested puffin and horned puffin. However the only good picture I got was of crested puffins. The horned ones always had their back to me when trying to take a picture, and from the back they are just a black bird.

It was our first time seeing a puffin in the wild. They are rare enough that the captain says he doesn’t always get to show them to passengers.

We saw no large mammals – no moose, no bear. Sigh.

On Tuesday I finished up the baby quilt for Baby Lucy, scheduled to arrive this month. At least I thought I finished. Turns out I forgot to quilt the middle medallion! I was pretty irritated with myself since I was so excited to finish the binding and thought it ready to wash and mail. Oops! I also didn’t have enough of the color of thread I needed, so I had to wait until this afternoon to buy some along the way. Thank goodness for nice, small town quilt shops with a good selection. I guess it will be a few more days until I get it in the mail.

Today we drove to Seward. It rained pretty steadily, and we didn’t expect to see much along the way. Surprise! We found a nice cow and calf moose. Moose have a tendency to hide in the brush, and these two did their best.

We are now settled in at Stoney Creek RV Park outside Seward. Nice place with more room than we have had recently plus 50 amp power! That is unusual in Alaska. Most places have 30 amp, and it doesn’t always work well even at that level. We had a fabulous dinner at the Gold Rush a bistro in town plus did exciting things like go grocery shopping including getting some sea sickness preventatives – Dramamine, candied ginger, and peppermint. We go on another much longer wildlife cruise in a couple of days, and the water could be rough. Hope it calms down some before then as it is very rough right now.

We did some sightseeing to the literal end of the road and saw this fabulous waterfall.

The rain is forecast to continue, and we are almost surely going to miss the strong aurora forecast for tonight. Oh well.

The Turnagain Arm bore tide and into Homer

The forecast for Friday was a strong bore tide in the Turnagain Arm, so we headed out to see it. A bore tide is when the tide comes in without the gradual increase usually found; instead it comes in as a surf wave. The only places in the US where it is found is in the arms of Cook Inlet, the big inlet where Anchorage is situated. Big bore tides happen every 7-8 days when there is a particularly low low tide and a particularly high high tide. We just got lucky with our timing that one was forecast to happen while we were in Anchorage.

The tourist information locations identify a number of places with good viewing possibilities, and we went to one known as Bore Tide Viewing Spot #5, pretty far up the arm and between Girdwood and Bird Point. It had great parking and a flat spot to view. We got there early, and it was a good thing. We were the third vehicle in the lot, and before the tide came in there were people double parked and out on the highway! along the way the clouds were very low, and it drizzled off and on.

We knew the ride was getting close when the surfers showed up.

Then came the surprising wave. Just a single, arm-wide wave that eventually curled over. The surfers (yes, they were all in heavy wetsuits), tried to surf it.

It was really great fun to watch, even in the drizzle and haze. Here are a few iPhone videos. You can leave the sound off; you mostly just hear the wind.

This one shows the early part of the surfers catching the wave.

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This one is when the last two lost it.
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After the wave passed us by we had dinner at a nice BBQ place called the “Turnagain Arm Pit BBQ”. Cute name, and nicely smoked meat. I got a half rack of St. Louis ribs and a half rack of baby back ribs while Kevin got brisket. We had enough left overs for two additional meals! BBQ is good for that.

The next morning we left Anchorage to head to Homer. It rained and rained. Not just the standard Alaskan coastal drizzle, but lots of real rain. We lucked out into the most beautiful site in the campground (the Homer KOA) IMHO. It took some maneuvering to sit us almost sideways, and Kevin had to haul every foot of power cord we had, but he did it! The tiny dot center left is one of the fishing charters headed out from the Homer Spit. The distances are deceiving. It is over 5 miles across the water.

Homer is famous for fishing, but neither of us are anglers. We decided to go wandering along the Homer Spit, the remnant of a lateral moraine left over from the last ice age. Want to see what a Spit looks like?

The very skinny bit of land in the distance

The spit is mostly RV parks, tiny businesses (mostly marine related plus some restaurants), and the harbor with its hundreds of boats. The docks float up and down the poles based on the tide. You can see how much it varies by the dark markings.

Showing the larger businesses on the Spit

And about those glaciers… Glacier National Park in the US has NOTHING on Alaska in regards to glaciers. They were all over the place. You can spot them easily because the ice in them is blue – compressed so tightly that no air exists in it and only blue light is reflected. I wish the gray skies didn’t fool the camera so much or the blue would be easier to see.

We saw 5 or 6 of them in a 30 mile scenic drive. There were probably more hidden by the clouds.

We have scheduled a wildlife boat tour for tomorrow, taking off from the Spit. I am hoping for lots more pictures, though we have rain in the forecast. Sigh.

Anchorage to Fairbanks

On Wednesday morning we left for Anchorage. It was a glorious day! Blue skies with just a few puffy skies and decent temperatures (35-60). As made our way south, the road improved and the traffic increased. There were numerous pullouts that we took advantage of to do some sightseeing. The mountains still had their beautiful new coats of snow that glowed.

And of course the big lady herself was in good form.

We got settled into the Golden Nugget RV Park a bit east of downtown in a very populated part of the city. As with most urban RV parks, it was crowded and tight. Space costs money! It was a challenge to get the big fifth wheel rigs in. One guy just refused to turn his rig tight enough, and it took the wagon master to convince him it would take a near jack knife turn to get into his site. Our motorhome is longer than the fifth wheel trailers, but they have to add the length of the pickup in front of the hitch which complicates things. Even we took three wiggles to get into the site. We did all kinds of fascinating house stuff like laundry!

After supper we decided to take advantage of the long day to do some sightseeing. We wandered near the water looking at some of the fancy homes and lovely parks. We then decided to take a short trip along the Turnagain Arm. The tide was out, just turning, and the waves on the mud flaps were fascinating. The water was barely over the mud flats, and the waves were actually more mud than water! I tried to get a picture, but I wasn’t very successful. The haze was coming in, but at least you can see the mountains.

Today (Thursday) we had a bus tour of Anchorage. We got to see a bunch of sights. The seaplane base is the largest in the world! We saw hundreds of planes scattered in the area with one taking off or landing every few minutes. The driver also took us by both small plane fields, and there were even more hundreds of planes. It is definitely true that the bush plane is the basic transportation in Alaska! However the most interesting site was Earthquake Park. It is a spot on the edge of the Turnagain Arm that basically fell into the water during the 1960s earthquake. The city made it into a park with great walking trails. Nice vegetation too!

Looking across the Turnagain Arm to Anchorage

Native vegetation plus a lovely, fragrant rose.

We also spent some time in downtown Anchorage. One of the nicknames is “City of Flowers”, and it is well-deserved. There were flowers everywhere. Man businesses had flower boxes or hanging plants. These photos were taken in a downtown park.

A bit the worse for wear, but still lovely

There we’re lots of murals, but I only took this picture. Why do I forget to take more?

Tomorrow is our last day in Anchorage, and we have only lunch and a travel briefing to attend. We are still looking for a few presents, so we are looking at some native gift stores. And of course there is a highly recommended quilt shop to visit for some Alaska fabrics. Later in the afternoon we will go to the Turnagain Arm to hopefully see a tidal bore. Maybe I will get a good video!

Denali shows her face!

We took our time getting around on Monday, but we finally made it out to the park. We were kind of looking for animals, but mostly just enjoying the scenery. The park’s visitor center had a couple of movies on we watched. The first one was about the history of dog mushing in Denali, and it was fascinating. The park has the only active dog mushing crew left in the NPS, and the dogs are used throughout the winter months to support scientific and enforcement tasks. They are very proud of their dogs known for being the old style, big freighter dogs instead of the smaller racing style. The second film was basically just a travelogue of the park in all four seasons with breathtaking photography. The center was a zoo, filled with people who all seemed to think standing in the middle of a walkway was appropriate behavior. The park store was worse. It was pretty small, and it was very crowded. Then again, we didn’t get there until around noon!

We decided to drive the 15 mile section of Park Road accessible to cars. Lovely scenery, but we really didn’t take any pictures. Then we saw Mount Denali had decided to show herself! I took 15 photos, but I will only show 3. She is about 75 miles away from us here, and my little point and shoot was at its limits, but she is definitely there.

Everyone I have talked to about seeing “The Mountain” was right: she is big, she is beautiful, and people just do a lot of staring with their jaws open. I know I did.

After seeing Denali, we went back to the motorhome with big smiles on our faces. We had a caravan travel briefing about how to get into our campground in Anchorage (complicated!) and places we might want to see along the way. We then caught a bus to the Cabin Night Dinner Theater a few miles south of the park. The food was pretty good, and the show was fun. It was a series of vignettes about life in early Alaska with a very talented group of singer/actors. Not at all vaudeville like the Palace theater in Anchorage. This was very professional. I highly recommend!

Today we got a bit of surprise when we woke up – huge fluffy snowflakes! Here is an iPhone video I took.

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The temperature was 33 on our weather station. And guess what? We had an ATV ride scheduled for today! We made sure we had warm clothes and rain gear. We also went to the local grocery store in Healy, just north of our place, to get some perishables. Kevin ended up going back to the park store to buy a knit cap, but the weather ended up being gorgeous by the time we got to the ride location at 1:00.

Some people were out for wagon rides (excuse the dirty windshield!)

The snow and rain left lots of mud holes for us

But the mountains were spectacular in the new clothes

We were pretty tired from bad sleep and the ride, so we came back to the motorhome, changed clothes (I took a warm shower too), then went to dinner. Best meal of the trip so far was at Prospectors Pizza in Denali Park. We had fried ravioli for an appetizer, then their Gold Rush pizza. We had 2 pieces of our 13” brick oven pizza left over! But we did find room for crème brûlée for me (there is always room for crème brûlée) and a chocolate cheesecake for Kevin. It was really outstanding.

We heard Denali was showing her face again, so back to the park we went. However the cloud cover and very flat conditions meant it was impossible to photograph. After the previous day, we were satisfied with our memories. We did enjoy seeing park staff or volunteers out walking with young sled dogs beginning their training. We passed 6-7 of them, but we only took pictures of this photogenic young lad.

Tomorrow Anchorage.

Last night in Fairbanks and on to Denali

We went as a group to “The Alaska Salmon Bake” at Pioneer Park on Friday evening. We had been warned the salmon would be over cooked, so almost all of our group chose prime rib. Excellent choice! It was tender and juicy, and the roasted potatoes I had with it were fabulous. Kevin had prime rib with macaroni and cheese. The mac was definitely so-so. The cheesecake afterwards was more than I could eat, so I took mine in a to go container and had it for dinner the next night! After dinner we went to the Palace Theater on the grounds. It was a vaudeville-style show starting off with a great piano player who did a sing along of early 1900s music. I knew most of the songs, and I had so much fun singing. I miss group singing so so much when we travel! After the singing, various vignettes were done regarding early Fairbanks history. Old fashioned fun.

All vaudeville must have a drag performance

Cast of 4 including the standard tropes of “good girl” and the “bad girl”

We saw a sun dog on the way back to the motorhome.

Sun dog seen on the way to the RV park after the show

On Saturday we headed the short distance to Denali and the Denali RV Park and Motel. We stopped at an old Alaska traditional place, the Monderosa. We definitely recommend this place! Great burgers and fish and chips plus nice folks running the place. The RV place doesn’t have much of a motel, but the RV sites are level with solid hookups. The fact that they are pretty short and narrow is just part of the experience, or so we keep being told.

We went to bed at 9:00 on Saturday because we had to meet the bus for our naturalist trip into Denali. Regular vehicles can drive 15 miles into the park, but to go beyond that requires riding an approved bus. There are two types of buses. One is for hikers and sightseers who want an inexpensive method of seeing the park. No narration, just a hop on, hop off kind of thing. The second type of bus is a dedicated one with the driver adding naturalist commentary. It is a physically nicer bus, provides a snack box, water, and a souvenir booklet (quite nice BTW). The goal is to see wildlife, and the bus stops whenever someone spots something along the road. This is the type we had, and since we the caravan made a special type of group reservation, the bus even picked us up at the campground. The fact that it was to leave at 4:50 am was not mentioned until the day before!

We climbed on, almost awake, and took off for the park. We couldn’t leave the bus when we saw wildlife, but the windows are big enough for lots of picture taking. We saw pretty much everything we wanted to see. Be kind about the pictures; I have a simple Canon point and shoot.

A grizzly bear close to the road.

A young moose a long way from the road.

Dall sheep, a first for me. These were a loooonnnnngggg way away, but my binoculars confirmed I am correct in the identification. You’ll have to trust me.

And caribou! Another first for me. The males have the super long antlers while the female antlers are smaller. Males lose their antlers after the rut, but females keep theirs until late winter meaning all Santa’s reindeer (domesticated caribou) are girls!

Of course the scenery was interesting too. We won’t be seeing the Denali mountain from here because of the rain and clouds, but nice views without that. It started off rainy, then we had some partial clearing.

After a nice nap when we got back to the campground, Kevin and I decided to take a short road trip south on the road we will take to Anchorage in a few days, just to see the sites and pull-ins we can’t do in the motorhome. When the clouds came down and it started to rain, the mountains became ethereal and fascinating. They basically disappeared into the mists.

We did see something a bit different – the tourist train headed into Denali from points south (Anchorage and others). That would be a fun ride!

We ended up at the 49th State Brewery just north of town for an early dinner at 4:30. Beer was ok, and the food was good. Very busy though!

Tomorrow we are on our own until the evening when we attend a show. More on that later.