FRIDAY, JULY 26

FRIDAY, JULY 26:

     After another leisurely morning , we headed down the road to Glennallen.  This town is located at the junction of the Richardson Hwy (runs north & south to Fairbanks) and the Glennallen  Hwy (runs west to Anchorage).  About 150 miles; took about 3 ½ hours.  First half was bad; second half mostly fine.

     Went to an RV Park that Rob & Karen had recommended.  Very nice.  Owned and run by Natives (Inuit background – what we used to call Eskimo).  As soon as we got set up, Bill took the truck to a tire place.  Back at Tok, the tire store recommended by the RV Park owner (the only one in town) was all out of the size we needed.  But the guy there was pretty sure that we wouldn’t have any trouble making it down to Glennallen, and said we could surely find what we needed there – there were 3 tire stores there.  I had to laugh – as I was in the lounge area back in Tok while Bill was out, another camper came in and asked the owner where he could find a tire store.  The Alcan claims another victim.  

     While Bill was taking care of that, I was on the net and phone, making arrangements for the next few days.  We knew that we wanted to do a flight-seeing trip over Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.  If we only do one flight-seeing trip on this trip, this is the place to do it.  It’s our largest national park – twice the size of Denali.  Yet one of the very least visited, because 1) it’s mostly wilderness; there are very few developed trails not in the backcountry, and 2) you have to really want to get here.  It’s 60 miles off the highway, on a dirt road which rivals parts of the Alcan for ugliness.   But the more we read about it, the more we wanted to visit it.   The scenery is supposed to be absolutely jaw-dropping, especially from the air.  And we had a 2-for-1 coupon for a flightseeing excursion.  So that helped clinch it.

     However, because the tour initiates within the Nat’l Park itself (actually, in the tiny village of McCarthy), and because we also wanted to do some hiking & sight-seeing on foot around the park, we realized that a 1-day day trip into the park wouldn’t be sufficient time.  And we  certainly didn’t want to make the 3+ hour trip in and back twice.  So the search began for an affordable place to spend a night.  Like we did in Gustavus.  Couldn’t locate anything that cheap, but finally did find a cabin which we booked.  Our flight is booked for Sunday afternoon, so we’ll drive in Sunday morning, spend Sunday night there, and return to our home on wheels Monday evening.    

     Tomorrow, we have a glacier trek booked.  Will spend about 3 hours walking around on the Matanuska Glacier (about 1 ½ hours west of here), exploring wherever the guide takes us.   This was about half the price of a glacier trek in Juneau – glad we waited!

     It turned into a beautiful afternoon and evening, so we ate our good leftovers  outside.   They have a free “dessert night” here a couple of times a week –the staff makes homemade dessert.  Tonight it was a couple of kinds of cake.  A very nice touch. 

     Our site has some foot traffic go by, as we’re located right next to the restrooms.  This was one of the last full hook-up sites.  And, we’d asked for a site with good WiFi reception, and this is right by the tower.  So, not as much privacy eating as we’d like, but it’s ok – had a couple of fun conversations with folks as they passed through.

     After dinner, we took Pappy around the park.  Stopped and talked with two Danish guys travelling together (one actually lives in Norway now).  They’re spending a lot of time on water – canoed or rafted for 1 week at a time down rivers.  Talk turned to their high taxation rates and what benefits they received, if it led to lack of incentive to work hard (in their experience, it didn’t).