Epic Alaskan Summer Part 3: What's an Arizonan like you doing in an Alaska like this?

After a little breather, our saga continued with the arrival of Rick's dad and youngest brother.  Unfortunately, they arrived in the middle of Spewmageddon Part 2: Revenge of the Spew.  A couple of the girls came down with something unspeakable the day before Joe and Joey's flight, so we were under quarantine for the first two days of the trip.  I stayed home while Rick spirited them around Fairbanks, gold-panning and visiting the Museum of the North and the Morris Thompson Cultural Center.

Once we were reasonably sure that nobody was going to upchuck in the car, we headed down to Denali. We drove out to the Savage River stop, which is as far as you can go on the Park Road in your personal car (unless you are very special people and win the driving lottery in September--which we are not *sniffle*).  There was a moose far in the distance, but the only other critters we saw were some particularly insolent rodents.

Scenic, no?

The Savage River.

Our intrepid explorers.  Later, they would regret wasting so much energy scaling this rock.

Snow in June was a new experience for an Arizona kid.

The brown lump is a moose.

This guy just seemed annoyed by our presence.

This opportunistic little bugger, on the other hand, was ecstatic to see us--and our sandwiches.  He was literally inches away from us the whole time we were eating.

This is my very favorite building in Alaska.  I call it Vera.

Vera is the local salmon-bake restaurant outside of Denali National Park.  Yes, it is as crooked as it looks--one of the floors is slanted enough that you better walk carefully on the way to the bathroom or you might make a couple of new friends. The windows and doors are out of alignment, the door handles are models of walrus oosiks*, and apparently the building is still actively shifting...so, naturally, they slapped a 2x4 addition with a canvas roof on the side.  (Hey, if it ain't broke, add something onto it, right?) The gnarled walls are covered with Alaskana like bear-traps, antlers, and old tins of food, punctuated with what I'm pretty sure are bullet holes.

Check out the support beams.

I'm in love.

The food was pretty good, too.

Our next mini-adventure was the Steamboat Discovery tour, which gave us blueberry donuts and smoked salmon with a side of Fairbanks flair--floatplanes, Iditarod-winning sled dogs, and a recreated Athabascan village.

Our ride.

The Chena River.  You can't tell, but there was a ton of smoke from a local fire this day.

Float planes are pretty awesome.

The kennel of a local Iditarod champion.

A working fishwheel.

Yes, these are real salmon--not props.

I love these cabins with the grass on the roof and moss in the chinks.  Give me internet and a flush toilet, I could totally live in one of these.

We ended off the trip with a visit to Chena Lake for some kayaking and fishing.  Most of us had a wonderful time.  Grandpa just kept pulling fish after suicidal fish out of the water.  The older kids paddled happily all over the lake.  The littles, confined to the shore with Mom, found ways to amuse themselves--Claudia kept running for the water and promptly drenched herself, and Echo had not one, not two, but three accidents, completely exhausting all emergency stores of clothing squirreled away in the van.  The end result was that we all sat in the van, two of us mostly naked, eating snacks.  It wasn't the worst way to spend the day. Eating fresh fish for dinner was a bonus.

All in all, it was a great week with two of our favorite people.  Love you guys.

NEXT TIME: The calm in the storm...not really.


*A walrus penis bone. I kid you not.