7-10-2013 A Rainy Day in Denali!

The last couple of days we have had lots of rain, not good for tourism but great for the fire conditions that currently exist in the area.  We are hoping that the Fairbanks area is getting this as well.  There is a large fire in the Chena Hot Springs area, where we were a couple of weeks ago.  It has already burned more than 70,000 acres.  It was accidently started by the army practicing in the area.  They were cautioned not to conduct the training exercises, but someone overruled the decision.  Not good. 

With the wet conditions we have had some down time. Getting to review our pictures and do some tweaking.  Hope you enjoy some of our masterpieces at the end of the blog.

Last night we went to a dinner play, “Cabin Nite”.  They reenacted some of the early Alaskan pioneers that settled in the Denali area.  We have done quite a lot of research about the early development so it was refreshing to meet the characters and what parts they played in the early days, such as Annie and Joe Quigley, and Harry Karstens.  Much of the audience was clueless and thought it was just a play.  The cast was very compassionate about each role so it really appeared very realistic.  Most of the shows we have attended have included Robert Service poems.  He was a famous poet here in Alaska.   And, our friend Don Jacobs was selected to participate in the show as a moose!   We were very proud! 

This is Annie Quigley's actual house we saw at Kantishna at the end of the road on our bus trip through Denali.

 We hope to make another trip to the Denali State Park this week to get another view of the south side of Mount McKinley.  They are forecasting much better weather for the next few days.  The temperature here is in the 50’s and low 60’s.  So much of the warm weather clothing has been put away for awhile.  We did bring more cold weather gear so we did make the right decision. When we do go to the State Park we will have lunch at Mary’s McKinley Lodge.  Sharon is reading Mary Carey’s book and hopes to finish before we go back there.  So for a while we’ll hangout around the motorhome continuing to plan our adventures south.

The flag is at half staff for the firefighters who died in Arizona.

Fireweed