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Published: August 27th 2007
Sunday August 26, 2007 We wanted to take our time driving back through the park. We got up early and were on the road by 7:00 am. The temperature was about 41 degrees. It was clear and sunny. I was able to stop along the way and take photos of the early morning light on the land. As we made our way down the road, Mt. McKinley finally showed itself. It looked magnificent. It dwarfs the other peaks. What a great departing gift! We didn’t see any animals. The park is so huge seeing animals is really a hit or miss thing. We were pleased with what we had seen in the park. It would have been nice to have seen a wolf or lynx, but that’s really unusual.
We made it to Fairbanks by 1:00 pm. The road was good. The scenery was ok. We went directly to the Sandhill Crane Festival taking place at a wildlife refuge in Fairbanks. There weren’t many people there, but there were a number of sandhill cranes. I don’t have the info sheet with me (doing laundry) to give the details about these birds, but they breed in Alaska and migrate to the Great
Plains (Nebraska) for the winter. This refuge is one of the stops on their migration route. It was neat to see so many up close. We may go back this week to watch them band the birds.
Later I did grocery shopping and we ate out (our food is starting to be boring). We planned to stay in a campground where we could attempt to see the northern lights. A lady we talked with at the Festival said she saw them in Fairbanks Saturday night. The website said the beginning of this week is prime time for viewing IF the skies are clear and the moon isn’t too bright etc.
We chose a campground a short distance from Fairbanks hoping to get a darker sky. I was prepared to stay up for awhile. We had internet access so I got caught up on the blog. About 1:10 am I thought I should go outside and look and I saw them!! I got Frank and they were vivid for about 5-7 minutes. A green streak arced, shimmered, danced and waved against the sky. It was awesome! We watched for an hour, but it was faint after the first 10 minutes. We
were so excited. God had blessed us with that viewing. We didn’t get any photos. Hopefully the next time.
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A couple of your photos caught my eye so had to take a closer look. Love the black and white photo and the yellow leaves are so pretty in the other photo. Just wanted you to know that I liked your photos and rated them! Keep travel blogging...so pretty.