Pictures of Mt McKinley

These are just a few pictures of Mt. Mckinley.  This is a quick blog... just to show some views... we are off visiting Seward and will write more later. We are having a grea time... had a wonderful boat tour yesterday of the Fjords National Park....  pictures to come soon.
Where we stopped earlier which had no view of the Mt.

We went on a hike.

This morning (Tuesday), we went on a hike in the park with our guide, JJ.  He told us about the plants in the park as we went along.  Although we did not see any wildlife, the hike was beautiful as we walked to two pretty lakes.  These pictures are of some of the things we saw on the like.

 This is our guide, JJ.



This is a dwarf dogwood.  It is a small plant that grows close to the ground.




Views of both of the lakes we hiked to.




View of one of the lakes and the mountains.



Our ride through Denali National Park.

I am back on line.... we are in Seward now... I will catch up one day at a time.... Monday, we did our Denali tour.. Bad news was that it was rainy most of the day and we did not get to see Mt. Mckinley.  Good news was that we saw a lot of animals and it snowed on some of the peaks as we were going through the park.  We had a very good tour guide/bus driver. A good bus driver is very important since the road is narrow and up high on the side of the mountains...  We saw 3 grizzley bears, 3 wolves, a fox, some moose, carabou, and dahl sheep.  We had a very good time.... it was a long day but worth it because of all we saw.


This is the bus we rode into the park. (the one in the back -- named Harry)



One of the views from on the tour.



This is one of the bears we saw.....







If you look closely, you can see one of the 3 wolves we saw on the tour.



Ducks on one of the ponds we drove by..







We stopped in this area for lunch.  This was once a mining town.  Our lunch was served in a modern lodge.  There are cabins here for about $450 a night!  Beautiful area though.





This is what the mountains looked like after the snow.



This was our look at a fox.  It came very close to the bus.  Our bus driver said that we were lucky to see a fox.





Mary, does this remind you of anything??  This is the road we went over twice, one going in, one going out!  This is why you need a good driver!  The busses pass each other all the time. Pretty tight!

This bear came really close to the bus.  It came up to the road and behind the bus that was parked behind us.





Some of the Dahl Sheep we saw on the trip.....





This was a bull moose with just the start of antlers.



Driving to Denali.....

This is our car for the next two weeks......



The License on our rental car.....





  



Leaving Anchorage...  This is part of downtown ...



one of the mountains and rivers we saw today...





Mt. Mckinely is behind me and hidden behind the clouds... no sighting today.........





The drive was a little long and mostly a really pretty one.  It was some what cloudy and we could see the rain on the mountains.  The weather is cool and enjoyable.  Early to bed tonight... we are getting on the Denali wilderness tour bus going into the park at 6:10 in the morning :)  this is a 13 hour tour and hopefully we will see some interesting things.

Bye for now.....This is a pretty place..



The Trip to Alaska

We are here.  The day was long, but all the flights went well and on time.  The weather was good and we could see a lot from the plane.  We went up through Canada to Seattle and some rivers, lakes and mountains. 

Some pretty interesting clouds as seen from the plane.

More Clouds....

On the flight from Seattle to Anchorage.  This was a really pretty flight because we could see the inside passage with mountains most of the way.

This was a mountain sticking out of the clouds --- made for an interesting sight.

We arrived late last night but the sun was still pretty high in the sky.  There were people everywhere and alot of people biking here and there.  The air is cool here and feels nice.
We have met some interesting people and most are really nice and friendly.
We are leaving Anchorage this morning to drive to the Denali area so hopefully there will be more pictures to show.
This was a quick blog, but did want to touch base with everyone and let you know we made it here ok.

Ready and waiting......

We have the bags packed and other jobs done so we are just waiting for our departure tomorrow morning for Alaska.  We plan to eat dinner, watch a movie, and relax tonight.  (and hopefully get some sleep) Tomorrow will be a long day.  We leave XNA at 10:55 our time and get to Alaska about 12:30 Arkansas time so probably won't be calling anyone when we land.  (9:30) Alaska time.
We will be pretty busy the first couple of days....so if I don't report for a few days, that is why.  I will post pictures as soon as I can.  There is internet at the hotels where we are staying so I can check email etc... Plus there is some ATT cell service in most of the areas we will be visiting. 
So... Here we go......

Front Porch Done (for now)

I ended up painting the floor of the porch a gray color. 



Starting to come together.




I still need to make the pillows, but this is somewhat how it will look when I do.




This how it looks now.    I like how it came together.  It is more inviting and I am sure Don and I will enjoy sitting out there.