Day 8 - Whittier to Denali

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This morning we were up early and disembarked in Whittier. Not much of a town here - mostly industrial. There are no homes in Whittier - there is one old high-rise military barracks and everyone in town lives there. It was rainy and cold and a little depressing. Having to leave the ship - our home for the past 7 days - was hard, even though we knew we had more adventures ahead of us. We boarded a bus for our ~300 mile drive up to Denali, and met our driver, Dan, who was a music teacher. Dan was an interesting fellow who liked to sing. He said he got bored giving the same old safety speech every time he drove, so he wrote a song which he then proceeded to sing for us. Hmmmm, this could be an interesting ride. We spotted 2 or 3 moose out in the lowlands before too long.

Dan had lots of commentary and knew a lot about the areas we were driving through. Dan told us that if Alaska were split in half, Texas would be the third largest state. 😊 We also learned that the state bird is the ptarmigan (although many say it's the mosquito). We made a pit stop in Wasilla to get snacks at the grocery store, and when we were supposed to be back on the bus he pulled out this long animal horn of some sort and played some notes on it. He talked about the Iditarod and then broke out into a song called "I Did, I Did, I Did the Iditarod Trail" and had us all singing along on that part of the chorus. I will have this song stuck in my head for LONG TIME!

The weather seemed to be getting better as we drove north, with the rain stopping and clouds breaking up. By the time we got close to Willow, it was pretty clear and the sun had come out. He said that we were supposed to stop at the War Memorial for our next break, but he was getting pretty good glimpses of "The Mountain" and we may have to stop. "The Mountain" is what Alaskans call Mt. McKinley or Denali (depending on whom you are speaking with). Seems that the mountain had been named Denali ("the great one") by the native Alaskans, and when they formed the National Park they wanted to name it after President McKinley and also change the name of the mountain. Alaskans did not want either, but they finally settled on naming the park with the Alaskan name and changing the name of the mountain. Anyway, we stopped at a little viewing area in Willow and just as we pulled up, the last wisp of a cloud was blowing off the peak. We heard later that you can only see the entire mountain 20 days out of the year, and we just happened to hit it on one of those days. There's that charmed weather again!

We still stopped briefly at the war memorial, and as I was heading back to the bus, I found a plaqued dedicated to Drew Dix, who is from Pueblo and one of the Medal of Honor recipients that has also been honored in his home town. Ironically, he was in Pueblo this weekend for a Memorial Day celebration.

Back on the bus and we continued the rest of the way to Denali. We checked into our lodge, a rustic cabin- looking building, and walked over to the restaurant to have dinner and a local brew. We then were picked up for a trip to the home of a trapper for a presentation about Alaskan life and a dog mushing camp for a dog cart ride. We were shown a wall full of pelts and furs from a variety of animals, and then fed some reindeer. Do you know the difference between reindeer and caribou? Caribou can't fly! Actually, reindeer are the domesticated cousins of caribou.

We then were bused out to the mushing camp where we met Bill Cotter, a very soft spoken 60+ year old man who has raced in the Iditarod 20 times! He has never won (came in 3rd), but has raced and won the Yukon Challenge, a similar race held in Canada. They hooked up a team and we rode in a cart that was made from a Chevy Nova frame. The dogs barked and pulled us around a circle track twice. It was a fun experience!

We got back to the lodge and ran across the street to a little shop called "Husky Homestead". It was a shop owned by Jeff King, one of the leading mushers. We found some cute husky things and then headed back to the lodge. We went to the pizza place for a slice and a brew, then realized it was already 10pm. This midnight sun thing is hard to get used to!

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