July 13 and 14 -  we arrived a the Anchorage airport at midnight. waited for the flight to arrive. it arrived early at 12:46am.  met the girls. they had a relatively good flight from NY to Minneapolis and to Anchorage. back to the hotel in Wasilla to sleep.    on wednesday it was a relatively lazy day.  we headed to a small town on the bikes, Talkeetna about 60 miles north of Wasilla. Its a quaint touristy town but has a great view of Mt. Mckinely.  we had lunch there. tony and ginny headed back to the hotel.
Pat and I  walked to the river to take a few photos of the mountain which is about 50 miles away.  after a few shots, because the clouds were starting to obscure the mountain,  we headed back to town, geared up and rode back to the hotel.


so thursday we were up and out of the hotel at 9am.  driving north toward denali park. stopped at the south view of Mt. Mckinley. this is the best vantage point to see the mountain. unfortunately it was completed shrouded in clouds.  if you didnt know it was there you'd never know it was there.
left there and decided to take the denali highway east. it is a 135 mile road, over 100 miles of dirt and gravel, through the alaskan tundra, along the base of the Alaskan mountain range.  it is supposed to be a very dramatic road that not too many venture on.  we ventured.  after 3 miles of paved road we were in the dust and dirt.  while impressive, and better than the road in denali park, it wasnt as impressive as billed. nevertheless we continued on hoping for wildlife and majestic mountains.

several impressive mountains to the north, with glaciers rolling off them to the start of the Susitna River.  got some nice photos.  a little more than halfway we spotted dark skies ahead.  time to don the rain gear.  oh wait we're driving , not riding.  well in a matter of minutes we were in a torrential downpour. the temp dropped from 76 to 56. we we bombarded with hail ranging up to 1/2 inch.  the ground quickly turned white as the hail smothered it.  the car escaped without damage i think.  10 minutes later we were out of the storm. and on dry ground.

after 100 miles we did spot one moose about 300 yards away.  with 20 miles to go the road was again paved.  we exited at Paxson, and then headed south back to wasilla.

on the way back we passed the Matanuska Glacier, and spotted a moose right off the side of the road.
the day turned into a 12 hour adventure, or quest.

here are some photos. click on them to enlarge.