Day 19--Wasilla to Denali National Park

Today was to be a short driving day, because we have the opportunity to attend church services in Wasilla.   We attended the worship service of First Baptist Church, which Catherine did not recommend.  It is not her church, but it was close to Robert's house, and we figured that since we had attended services Friday night at her church, it was okay to attend a different one today.  It was a much smaller church than we are accustomed to attending, but it reminded me a lot of our old church in Bishop.  Despite the fact that Wasilla is much larger than Bishop, the church had a distinctive "country" feel to it.  Perhaps it was the informality and the many testimonies from church members who had been in mission projects last week.  Or maybe it was the fact that several of the hymns were sung from a hymnal instead of an overhead screen.

After church we grabbed some fast food and headed north.  We have reservations at an RV park about eight miles north of Denali National Park.  It's the closest one that's not actually in the park.  The one in the park is smaller and doesn't have full hookups.  The park is a little less than 200 miles north of Wasilla, and will take us about 4 hours to get there, with no stops.

We did stop, however, at several pullouts along the way.  Usually they had signs indicating the possibility of seeing Mt. McKinley, the highest point in North America, a factoid that has been taught to every kid in school for all of my life, anyway.  The problem is, you can't really see it.  It's there in plain sight, all right, but usually it's obscured with clouds, which result from the extremely cold temperatures on the mountain coming in contact with warmer air moving up from the more temperate zones around Anchorage.  We did, however,  see the spots where it was supposed to be!  The main attraction at Denali, aside from Mt. McKinley, is the abundant wildlife in what is a pristine wilderness.  With millions of acres in the park, only one road travels across it, and it's not even paved.  We're planning a shuttle bus ride across the park tomorrow, so we'll see about those wildlife.

We arrived at the RV park without incident (no flats!), and found it to be very full of folks who had similar plans as ours.  We have to be at the bus stop at 5:45 tomorrow morning for a 6:15 departure.  Of course, the sun will be well up by then.