Denali Highway

Howdy folks! I'm sitting here at the bike shed with it raining outside so I thought I could spare a few minutes to update my blog. Last weekend I went on a road trip up to Fairbanks and back across the Denali Highway. The Denali Highway is a 130 mile section of road that is only paved for about 25 miles. It used to be the only road that got you to Denali National Park before th George Parks Highway was built. It's supposed to offer some of the most amazing views and chances for wildlife.

We started the trip by heading north to Fairbanks, we stopped and checked out the Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It's a recent building that is very abstract in it's design. The design is said to reflect the apline shapes of Alaska's scenary. It's an all white building kind of similar in effect to the Guggenhiem in Spain. After that we headed back to Value Village to try and discover more thrift shop treasures but alas I found none which is probably for the best as we all know I have enough crap already! It was Alex's birthday as well so we stopped by Wal-mart and picked up some party supplies. Since he was the token boy I didn't want to get girly stuff so I picked up THE bluest cupcakes I've ever seen and some Transformer masks. In the parking lot of the Wal-mart we sang happy birthday in our masks. Only Ashley and Alex ate cupcakes right away and thier mouths and teeths were completey blue for a solid hour!

Per Ashley's request we made a stop off in the town of North Pole, Alaska. This town IS Christmas 365 days a year. The street lamps are white wrapped in red stripes and it hosts the largest Santa in the world! It's main attraction though is none other than the Santa Claus House. Think of it as Wal-mart but just with Christmas stuff. We went in hoping to have our picture taken with Santa but as it turns out Santa's days off were the same as ours! We wandered around and took some pictures and each bought souviners. It was hard not to be happy once you started looking around because it felt like Christmas inside. I learned that when children write to Santa at the North Pole this is where they deliever the mail! And apparently they have people who answer many of the letters. We of course took lots of pictures and then headed on our way.

We headed south on the Richardson Highway which is east of Denali. After about 30 miles or so we were treated to our first viewing of the Trans-Alaskan Pipeline. It really is an amaznig thing to see. This pipe is 1,500 miles long and about 4 feet in diameter. The pipeline has it's own suspension bridge at our first viewing site. It popped up along the way for the remainder of the day and each time it seemed to be in a new configuration. We saw a Bald Eagle sitting in a tree near a rivier which is always awesome to see. We finally set up camp around 8:30 at a pullout called Flood Creek. We stayed right next to the creek which was really loud. With all the rain we've had all the creeks and rivers are higher. I got some great long exposures of the water and rocks which I'm really excitied to get edited and posted.

I managed to get too close for comfort with the creek though. After dinner I went to pump some water with my new filter that Dad gave me. I was walking along an edge that was eroded away and it went out from under me. I ended up in the dirt on my elbows but then I got on a rock where I was going to sit and pump the water. I manged to slip drop my filter and tubes. The filter went into the river but was caught by a current that brought it back under the very rock I was standing on. I bent down trying to find it but I couldn't then it popped out in the middle of the river! I stuck my foot all the way into the FREEZING water so I could grab it before it went down stream. I walked back to the campfire with no water and sopping foot. Needles to say my friends found it pretty funny as did I. We had just been talking about how nice it was to have dry feet on our days off, well it was nice for them at least!

The next day we drove down to Paxson which is where the Denali Highway begins. We didn't know what to expect for road conditions with all the rain and people's stories of flat tires. Basically everyone that we'd talked to had gotten a flat tire on the Denali Highway. The Denali Highway was really neat but the weather didn't do as we'd hoped. The previous day had been partly cloudy with broken clouds which we had hoped would happen the next day as well. Unfortunatly we got low clouds and drizzle for most of it. A lot of the awesome views were hidden by the clouds but we still got to see some neat stuff. We encountered our first porcupines! I'm sorry I didn't videotape this but if you've ever seen one run it's just about the funniest thing ever. The waddle when they walk and they just can't run, they try bless thier hearts but it's more like 3 legged trott waddle than anything else. We also saw a beaver right next to the road hanging out on a rock next to some water. I wish I could tell you what the last part of the road was like but unfortunatly Steph, Ashley and myself all managed to pass out and leave Alex to the driving (Sorry Alex!).

We were really proud of the fact that we survived teh Denali Highway with no flat tires! We figured that people were probably getting flats from not driving slow enough on the road. The conditions were a lot better than we expected. If you're ever in Alaska and have a car you should take a drive down the Denali Highway.

In just a few hours Dad will be arriving on train and I can not wait to see him! I can't believe I've almost been here 3 months. There are rumors of snow everyday but I'm mostly looking forward to seeing the colors change and a possible viewing of the Northern Lights! Hopefully I'll get the photos from last weekend and the Denali Highway posted soon I'm going to edit them today and then upload them. Keep leaving comments and make sure you're checking out the photos!