TUESDAY July 17, 2007

LONG tour of Denali today. Much more than we bargained for, but it was one way into the park so there was no getting out of it early. The mountain clouded over mid-morning and we got some rain early afternoon, but otherwise a fine day. Our road warrior kids took it all in stride despite the fact that the road was unpaved for 160 of the 190 miles. We did get to see a lot of wildlife, but most of it was a lot further from the road than what we saw along the AK hwy.

We panned for gold in the park and all did get lucky with some trace gold, but two of them were lost in transport to the office. I am not certain that the gold was not planted, but that would make me a cynic. I think they want us saying nice things about their tour.

I asked the kids what they would do differently if we did the RV again -- all said get a bigger RV and then started referencing the ones they liked best. It was easy to get "RV envy" on the road with some of the rigs that pull in near you. They all seemed curious about the 'dumping' process, but there were not a lot of volunteers when it was time. I thought Courtney was going to throw up when she saw one guy do it without gloves and there was some remnant runoff in the pipe dump on his hand.

Tomorrow should be another easy day as we don't catch the train til lunch time toward Anchorage. Thursday night (10pm) we leave Whittier, AK on the ferry.