Halfway to Denali

July 06   This morning we went to the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center at Portage Lake. The fee to

Kirby jealous of Smokey the Bear

access the exhibit hall and movie was waived because we had our National Parks Pass.

Ready to kayak

 

Then off to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

We figure we should bring the family here to check out some animals because we're not having much luck with seeing wildlife on the road. This drive-thru animal park is dedicated to the rehabilitation of orphaned and injured animals.

The only bear so far

Feeding the moose

 We made a stop at Fred Meyers to gas up and buy some groceries before heading North to Denali. They had Alaskan king crab for sale, $12.99 per pound. This is pretty cheap because the regular price is $20.99 per pound. So we sent Joe in to buy 15 pounds of crab. When he went in and asked for 15 pounds, the worker told him how about a whole case of 20 pounds for $11.99 per pound? I guess the worker didn't want to break the case,  he ended up offering the whole case of 20 pounds for $10.99 per pound. Joe couldn't refuse.

We drove halfway to Denali and planned to stay at the His & Hers Lakeview Camper Park. The gravel road to the sites were pretty torn up. When we got to our sites, we noticed a family camping. They took up a whole section with their tents and there were about 10 quads parked there. Kids were riding all over the place, creating lots of dust and noise and tearing up the road. It doesn't get dark here so this could go on all night. I wasn't going to pay $35 for this!

We ended up driving back a few miles and stayed at the Matsu RV Park. What a difference. Really nice park, they had a good sam rate of $32 and a military rate of $29. We had a feast of King crab and seafood chowder for dinner.