Days 1 & 2

This is the beginning of my recap of the Alaska trip. I'll be posting them in installments, usually broken up by day:

SAT 8/28: After a long, cramped flight from Chicago, I get into Anchorage at 10:45 Saturday night. The approach to the Anchorage airport brings us in over the water, and there's a scary moment when we are descending and I can't see anything but water. Nikki, Cynthia, and P.I. pick me up, because Tom and Todd are getting the RV ready for the next day. We hit the grocery store on the way back to Tom and Nikki's, then pretty much go straight to bed for the first in a series of early mornings.

SUN 8/29: We get up around 6:45 (Alaska is 4 hrs. behind Eastern Time) to start loading all of our gear into the RV. It was plenty big enough for six people, although I can say that because I got to sleep on the big bed. I don't know how the ones on the tiny beds would feel about that statement. Leave Tom & Nikki's around 8:00 and start the 3-hour drive to Denali National Park. A lot of the drive is just your average highway... with gigantic mountains all around. The closer we get to Denali, the more the colors start to change. Autumn has arrived in Alaska.

We arrive at the park, greeted by a national park sign which is usually framed by a breathtaking view. Unfortunately, due to smoke from the wildfires raging across Alaska, much of the scenery is obscured. No chance at seeing Mt. McKinley today. Tom tells us the fires have already burned an area the size of the state of Massachusetts. We stop by the visitor's center to get our camping permits and pick up some maps, then head down the road towards our campsite. There is only one 89-mile-long road in and out of the park. At mile 15, there is a checkpoint beyond which only RVs and park buses are allowed to continue, and once we reach our campsite at mile 29, only the park buses can travel the rest of the road.

We stop at the checkpoint, because there is a nice hike along the Savage River that gives us a chance to stretch our legs, and to eat lunch. It's pretty chilly, but the fresh air makes the food taste incredibly good. We climb up to a rock formation above the road, and see a pika in the rocks. I thought it looked like a rabbit with small ears, but someone else described it as an oversized mouse. We descend from the rocks and hike the loop trail along the Savage River, where we see a few ground squirrels. They look a lot like prairie dogs, only with longer tails. After taking a few pictures, we climb back in the RV, and head for the campsite. Along the way, Tom spots a couple of caribou grazing on a hillside.

Our campsite is a rather rugged RV park on the bank of the Teklanika River. In the center of the campground there is a bathroom with a flush toilet and a spigot for fresh water, but that's the extent of the amenities. We pick our spot and settle in, then walk down to the river and hike south along the bed. Because it's a glacially-fed river, there is a lot of silt in the water that creates lots of small islands in the bed (called braiding), so it's not hard for us to find a path. We find a set of caribou antlers with part of the skull still attached. We hope it was killed far away and washed there by the river. After thinking we see an animal moving on the bed ahead of us, we climb up to the road above and walk back to camp for a dinner of brats and potato salad. No problems sleeping tonight.