Moore's on the Move: Denali National Park Thursday, July 2, 2009

We left Fairbanks on Tuesday, June 30 and had a short drive of 60 miles to Nenana, AK. We had heard it had the cutest visitor center in AK and we needed to confirm that…and yep…they were right.

This rig was parked next to the visitor center while we were there. I thought the original painting on their door was a great added touch.

We met the most interesting lady at one of the shops. Her name is Joanne. She came to Alaska in 1970 and when she crossed the border she promised herself two things…never to wear a watch again and…and…I can’t remember the second thing. She supported herself by being a pool hustler playing for money and when she had won all the money, she started playing for real estate. She now owns 97 pieces of property in Nenana. She also used to be a musher. This is a picture of her during her mushing days.

Her she poses with “the girls” on the porch of one of her businesses. She was kind enough to let us spend the night in the parking lot of one of her other businesses. She said the people that own the one RV park in town don’t like for her to do this but she says she doesn’t care since she no longer owns the park!

These are shots from “town”…the flowers were just spectacular. These 22 hours of daylight do wonders for plants and gardens. We entered town by coming across the bridge on the left crossing the Tanana River and the road to the right is the downtown area. There are about 450 residents in Nenana.

Unfortunately we always find areas such as this in the small communities. But then welcome to every part of the lower 48 also. Every year they place a tripod like this on the frozen Tanana river and then they start taking bets as to the exact month, day, hour and minute that the tripod will break through the ice when the spring thaws starts. It cost you $2.00 for each entry you want to submit and at some point they put people on site 24 hours a day to watch for the break. They also have a system that connects the tripod to a clock and when the tripod goes, the clock is automatically stopped. Last year the correct time was guessed by 2 people and they each got something like $250,000.00 or they shared that amount. Sorry, can’t remember but it was a lot. This particular tripod was used in 1977.

We always find these quaint little churches in these areas. This is the Episcopal Church. These churches always seem to be open.

If you are looking for a place to stay when visiting Nenana, you might like a room with a pool and deck furniture. The next morning we had breakfast at the little cafe that used to be known as “Two Choices”. Your two choices were “take it or leave it” There was no menu because you never knew what the cook…our lady Joanne…was going to fix on any given day. She later sold the cafe to Brandi and her husband Bob. They keep the cafe open from the middle of April until October. Loretta had to make one more shopping stop before we got back on the road. Here she is showing us her new Alaska sweat shirt and her sourdough cookbook. Another short drive and we pulled into an RV park/gift shop that was described as a “place you must stop” in our Milepost. It seems everyone has a plane.

These 2 little guys were enjoying the warm sunshine.

And these 2 seemed to have missed the tour bus.

This is an old Philco television set…I am old but I don’t even remember anything like this.

We finally made it to Denali National Park later in the afternoon. The first thing we did was to go into the park to buy our tickets for the bus tour. We have chosen the longest tour…it goes 95 miles into the park and the total time is 12-13 hours. We had hoped to make the Friday tour but could not get seats until Saturday…Happy 4th of July to us. We then spent a little time in the Visitor Center in the park before returning to the RV park to share supper on the grounds.