Day 29
Wednesday, July 6
On the road to Denali

As hard as it is to believe we are 1/2 way through our trip to Alaska and the Canadian Rockies. It has been a fast and furious 29 days but we have seen many beautiful, interesting and fun places. The good news is that we have 29 more days to see beautiful, interesting and fun places. Today was another beautiful sunny clear day as we left Fairbanks for our 110 mile drive to Denali National Park. Maybe we have left the "rain gods" behind for a while. We had only gone 13.3 miles down Alaska Highway 3 when we pulled over into a double ended pullout to catch a glimpse of a huge river valley flanked on one side by beautiful mountains. Only when we got out to look at the view did we notice Mt. McKinley standing regally at the end of the range. I was amazed tht we could see "the mountain" from over 100 miles away. We caught several more glimpses as we drove further south. However, the mountain disappeared the closer we got to Denali due to mountains, clouds and haze. Hopefully we will get an even better view tomorrow as we take out wildlife tour to the far side of Denali National Park.

About 60 miles south of Fairbanks we crossed the Nenana River and the small village of Nenana. We decided to stop in the village and were surprised to find that every other RV in our caravan was either already there or arrived shortly after we did.  






Many of the buildings were covered with huge baskets of flowers. They claimed that they were so full and pretty because the played live music to the plants. I don't know if that is true, but they are doing something right.
 Nenana's claim to fame is that they hold a contest to see who can guess the exact time that the ice in the Nenana River will break up. They start selling "guesses" for the next year shortly after the ice breaks in the spring, and they continue to sell them until February 5. For $2 you can guess the exact Month, Day, Hour and Minute that the ice will break and the tower will fall. On February 5, they drill 5 holes in the ice over the river and set a pentapod (a 5 legged tower) in the holes. Overnight the ice refreezes around the pentapod.






 


A cable is attached to the pentapod and strung to a clock tower on the riverbank. Then the wait begins. When the ice begins to break, the tower will tilt and the cable it pulled; when the cable is pulled 10 feet a siren is sounded. Everyone runs to the riverbank to watch the tower fall. When the is pulled 100 ft. a meat cleaver is dropped on the clock marking the exact time of "break up." The pot last year was over $338,000 - 1/2 of which goes to maintain the community center, college scholarships, the town library and other town services. The remainder is divided among those who guessed the right time. A lady we talked to in the General Store told us that she had missed the correct time by 1 minute in two different years. They publish a big book with the name and time of everyone who entered the contest.

We were also told about the school in Nenana. The school is for students in their town and for surrounding villages. Kids from the surrounding area come to Nenana and live in a community dorm during the school year and return home for holidays, summer vacation etc. People from the community are employed to monitor the kids who live there. If they misbehave, partents must pay for their expenses. If they behave, the State of Alaska pays their tuition, transportation and room and board. On the main street was a big pile of sawdust. Three kids were digging through the sawdust; it seems that on the 4th of July they sprinkled over $200 in the sawdust and allowed the kids to dig through it looking for money. One little girl had several dollars in coins in her purse.

We drove on down to our RV Park on the outskirts of Denali National Park. We are located at the foot of a large mountain rage.
 

  Other than being crammed in, this is a pretty place to be. At 6:00 we are going to a Social and one of the guys on the caravan is fixing Gumbo for everyone. He is from Louisiana and loves to cook. I'm sure it will be tasty.

Tomorrow we take a 14 hour wildlife trip to the back side of Denali. We will have lunch and return. We've heard that there should be lots of wildlife to photograph. I'll let you know about that tomorrow. Till then - Happy Trails!!