Day 53: Denali area
Wednesday, June 22, 2016
Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska, United States
We had our alarm set to be up at 7:30 in order to get dressed and be at Canine Resort by 9am. All went well, and we found it after only one missed turn. It was about a mile off the main road, over hilly solid dirt road, a few pot holes, and labeled a 2 lane road - but not! Turns out this is dog resort is actually a human resort and the owner Donna has developed a lot of businesses on the property - a cafe with great breakfast, an indoor and outdoor music pavilions for local concerts, a beautiful lodge area, and artist gallery. Not to mention the Canine Resort barn - I had hoped for a doggie daycare area, but it is actually indoor/outdoor runs and they are most concerned that dogs do not bark and disturb the human lodgers at night, so I'm hoping this will work out for Sara. After that visit, we hurried to Grizzly Bear Campground to try to get a slot for today - starting tomorrow we have reservations within Denali Park, but all dry camping. So we had hoped for some luxuries to wash clothes, get internet, and they promised TV! Alas, we got a spot in the front parking lot, a laundry for a very expensive price ($3.50 per load, and one of the dryers did not seem to work, so took 2 runs! - that totaled over $25 for our laundry!!). We drove into Denali Park to get a plan for tomorrow, but dogs are not allowed anywhere except the parking lots and campgrounds, so we had to leave Sara in the RV again. The park weather is really chilly, low 50's and spitting rain, low clouds so not very enticing to do outdoor activities. We watched the movie, saw their museum, and read in the bookstore for 2 hours. Then drove into the tourist/shopping area outside the park - gassed up RV at $3.31/gallon! I asked if there was anywhere else to get cheaper gas, and the other customer asked if I was heading to Anchorage? Sure, will take another tank of gas to get there, but it was only $2.43 at Costco in Anchorage!! So we filled up and drove back to our campground, where we "get 30 min of free WiFi" but you really don't, and they tell you to turn your antenna "toward the hotel" to pick up cable TV, but you don't get that either. But we have a dump station, water, and electric connections so we'll fill up and empty out before checking into Denali Campgrounds tomorrow. Now the weather has cleared, even some sun, warmed up to 68 degrees but forecast for next few days is for clouds, rain, and possible thunderstorm so let's hope that's wrong!!!
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