My Alaska Trip - Part 4: More Denali NP and Healy

The rain came Sunday night. It rained for less than an hour and only at some places. We were our for dinner and enjoyed our pizza in Bury St. Edmunds. On the way home we found one road flooded to a degree that we had to go a detour. That was Sunday, since yesterday (Monday) the weather is beautiful again. It is amazing how beautiful our last summer here is. I hope the nice weather will last for all of our summer guest. The first ones will arrive in three weeks from now.
Talking about the weather....



... the longer I stayed in Healy the better was the weather. I went on a short trip to Fairbanks to visit Evalyn's friend Teresa. Well, she is my friend, too, but I met her through Evalyn. It was ca. 80F and we had lunch on her deck under the trees. We had a very good time talking, laughing, eating. I didn't spent a lot of time in the town itself. The only place I stopped was the gas station (gas is so much cheaper here than in Healy) and Creamer's Field, an old dairy farm. This is where you can watch cranes and geese during the summer. Since I decided to buy another bus ticket into the park I had to go back to Healy on that night.

"Did you ride the bus with me before?" Yes, Jeremy, I thing so. My tour into the park to Wonder Lake started with a 30 minutes delay. The weather was good, some clouds, but we were even able to see the mountains through them. And the bus driver was talking about the shrubs of Denali. And when he started doing that I knew for sure I went on a tour with him before. I think it was in 2005. The really amazing thing was that he remembered me. On all my trips into the park I may have had 5 bus drivers, but how many tourists did he meet on all his trips? And it wasn't that I got extremely motion sick and he had to stop or anything like that. He just remembered me. Wow.
It was a great trip again and we saw a lot of animals. Unfortunately most of them were too far away for any photo. At Sable Pass we stopped for a short tailed weazle. A few meters further on we saw some caribou at the hillside, right next to a bear mother with two cubs. On the ponds between Eilson Visitor Center and Wonder Lake was a long tailed duck swimming and Jeremy was more than excited about that. Guess it was something special.
The mosquitos at the lake were not as bad as expected. And the mountain was visible and we had a great time there. A short, great time, since we had to work on the delay from the beginning of the trip. But that was ok. Here are some pictures of the day:


















On the way home, at mile 6, I finally found my moose with a calf. Too bad I was still on the bus and couldn't get out to take better photos. But anyway, I saw the calf.











As always the 11 hours on the bus just flew by.

And then, all the sudden, my last day in Denali and Healy arrived. One more day before I had to go back south. Everytime I started my car it told me to "change engine oil soon", but that had to wait for one more week.
My last day was very sunny again and the park was getting more crowded. It was almost impossible to find a parking spot at the Savage River turnaround area. After driving by 5 times I had luck and parked my car for a three hours hike along the river. I wanted a photo of the nice marmot on the rocks. And this is what I found:




















I really enjoyed the last day here. And I was a little bit sad that the time was over. Vic, the moose biologist, already left a day before and more and more cars and especially RVs arrived at the park. I drove the oppite direction, back to Healy. At the intersection Otto Lake Rd - Parks Highway I hesitated for a little while, then signalled and turned into Otto Lake Rd.
For 8 years I spent all the nights I've been in that area at Evalyn's little red house on Otto Lake and I couldn't leave without going there for one more time. I passed the park hotel and the very busy Otto Lake (it was hot and a lot of people went swimming there), drove by the 9 hole golf course and stopped at the house before I turned around and decided that too many things changed and the time there now is history. And that is okay.
The evening I spent at Ann's house with dinner, talking and watching the little puppies.


The last part of the journey brought me back to Talkeetna (for a short stopp and a Geocache) and to Seward on the Kenai peninsular. But that is a different story. Now I will go and enjoy the beautiful english weather.