{"id":131,"date":"2008-07-06T07:21:02","date_gmt":"2008-07-06T12:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/?p=131"},"modified":"2008-07-06T07:21:02","modified_gmt":"2008-07-06T12:21:02","slug":"day-fourteen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/?p=131","title":{"rendered":"Day Fourteen"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning we have a Natural History Tour at Denali National Park. The park has 90 miles of road and only 15 of them are open to private vehicles. We will be on a bus so we can go beyond that checkpoint into the restricted areas. Of course we are hoping to see animals but the guide reminds us this is not a zoo. Animals prefer to stay away from roads and this park has six million acres for them to hide in. It’s vast – there are probably animals right there that we can’t see.
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\nAlong the way we do see caribou, ptarmigan, marmot, ground squirrels, snow geese, snowshoe hares and dahl sheep.<\/p>\n

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Most animals are so far away it’s hard to get good photos. There were at least two caribou here but they were too far apart to get them both in the closeup shot.<\/p>\n

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But this hare was not shy! Look at those feet!<\/p>\n

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The snow geese were also unconcerned.<\/p>\n

\"dahlsheep.jpg\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We saw quite a few small herds of dahl sheep but they were FAR away. Without the binocular camera I would not have been able to get even this good of a shot!<\/p>\n

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The scenery is amazing, just awesome!<\/p>\n

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There is a lookout where McKinley would be visible if it were visible, but it’s not. I hardly expect it anymore! It is so big at 20,320 feet, it makes it’s own weather and is only visible 20% of the time, They don’t really tell you that before you get there!<\/p>\n

In the six hours we were out, we had a few short rain showers but they stopped as quickly as they came and hardly interrupted the tour at all.<\/p>\n

Back at the entrance we opt to get off the bus and walk to the train station since our luggage has already been picked up. After a short visit to the visitor’s center to see the displays, book store and cafeteria, be walk across the road to the train station to wait for the train to Fairbanks, our last stop before flying home.<\/p>\n

We are again in the Princess UltraDome cars with great views for the ride that lasts a little over 4 hours so we took advantage of the opportunity to have dinner in the dining car – very good!<\/p>\n

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More great scenery, this is a view down from one of the high trestles. Scary, but it’s gone before you know it!<\/p>\n

Our bus driver meets our train and entertains us with stories of her drive to Alaska all by herself and about life in Fairbanks. We learn that it is an arctic desert with only, I believe, 16 inches of moisture per year. This along with early gold miners polluting the waters with arsenic, results in water problems for the area. She and almost everyone else who lives outside the city limits do not have running water and live in what they call dry cabins. They have to haul water and go to the Y or to the Laundromat to shower! Yes! The Laundromat! It’s $4.00 at the Y and less at the Laundromat, so she goes to the laundromat, but not every day because she is poor. I think she was angling for better tips!\u00a0 We checked into the Fairbanks Princess Riverside Lodge for the next two nights. We have a shower.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning we have a Natural History Tour at Denali National Park. The park has 90 miles of road and only 15 of them are open to private vehicles. We will be on a bus so we can go beyond that checkpoint into the restricted areas. Of course we are hoping to see animals but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,39],"class_list":["post-131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-alaska","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ruthpowersartquilts.com\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}