Saturday, July 21. 2012

We woke up and got breakfast at Snow City Cafe, a cute place in downtown Anchorage. I ordered reindeer sausage to keep it local, plus it’s delicious. Afterwards, we walked around and checked out some souvenir shops, received an ulu knife  as a free gift with purchase, and stopped into the Visitors Center (which I was banned from entering because I totally forgot the ulu knife was in my bag and tried to pass it through the government-operated building’s security screening.)

Finally, we were able to pick up our RV and get started on the 5-hour drive to Denali National Park. We stopped at the most scenic Wal-mart I’ve ever seen to pick up provisions for our 3 days in the Savage River campgrounds.

most scenic Wal-mart ever

The drive to Denali was wooded, gorgeous, and lined with a surprisingly large amount of fireworks stores. It rained throughout most of the day, and we didn’t see any wildlife during the drive minus some dogs running free near the street.

parked at our Savage River campsite, first night

inside view

After having dinner and drinks inside the RV while playing Cards Against Humanity, the rain finally stopped. We emerged from the RV during the bright midnight hour, and Kurt and I walked down to Savage River to check out the scenery. I don’t think we used our headlamps once during the entire trip. Seeing the vast open sky and mountains looming along the horizon, I realized that no camera was ever going to capture the true awe of being there, a feeling that I’d experience pretty much constantly through the rest of the trip.

this photo was taken at 12:30 a.m. with no flash

Wildlife count for the day: 0