Vacation with my parents part 3... Denali National Park

After we left Fairbanks we drove south back towards Eagle River and stayed in the small town of Denali right outside of Denali National Park.  We stayed at a hotel that was a lot like a cabin.  It had 2 small rooms inside each big room that we rented.  The worst part was that they were full size beds.

 There was tourist trap shopping right across the street which is where we found our dinner for the night.

 The following morning we got up and went into Denali National park.  We drove up to the visitors center to have a look around.

 There was this fun bear that we all took turns sitting on.

 After the visitors center we drove into the park as far as you can.  Which is only 18 miles.  We got out of the car and did the little hike there.  It is a 2 mile loop which isn't too bad at all.  The worst part was that it was very, very windy.

 But it was a beautiful hike.

 Ella picked these wild flowers that were along the trail.

 On the way into the park we saw a Caribou. We pulled the car over for a while and watched it walking around eating.

 We also saw these two little guys, an Arctic Ground Squirrel and the state bird The Willow Ptarmigan.

 This is like a seagull but smaller I can't remember the name of it.  Tyler was obsessed and took like 20 pictures of this bird.

On the way out of the park we stopped and got our picture taken by the Denali National Park sign.  The sad news for us was the we couldn't even see the Denali Mountain.  Only 30 perfect of the people who come out here actually get to see the mountain.  I have seen it from Anchorage though.  It is the tallest Mountain in the United States.

We left the park and drove back and had lunch by where we stayed the night then headed home.  It was an interesting ride to say the least.  A mama moose and a baby moose decided to run out in front of us and Nate had to slam on the breaks to avoid hitting them.  It also was raining very hard.  There were a few times that we fishtailed on the road.  We also encountered the SMELLIEST bathroom that I have ever been in.  It was so stinky that my dad opted to pee in the forest instead of the outhouse.  I only went into the outhouse to pee but I swear that my clothes smelled like the outhouse did in the brief times I was in there. Ugh.