Alaska - Day Nineteen: 4947.7 miles to Talkeetna & Back to Cantwell

One hundred twenty-six miles is a long way to go, but when you're driving through such beautiful country it's not so bad.

We prayed for sunny weather for our flight over Denali and God answered!

This isn't the plane we took but it was so cute, I had to get a pic...

This was our plane. Just washing the windows before we take off...

Meds taken, headset on, seatbelt buckled, and ready to go...

Our pilot flew low to the mountain so we could get a better view and possibly see any wildlife that might be in the area...

Then we got our first look of the mountain just peeking out from the clouds...

The terrain began to change the closer we got...

Then we started to notice signs of glaciers...

Then we were over the glaciers...

The next thing we knew, we had landed...

There is something rather surreal about being on top of a mountain glacier. Above the clouds. The sun shining on pure white snow on top of very blue ice.

It's also very strange to be so far up and so not cold...

Or alone...

How incredible would it be to spend the night up there???

Denali peeked out just a bit before we took off...

Ready for take-off...

While the views were spectacular, my meds were not. It felt like we would never land...

But we did!

Every single little town in Alaska no matter how big or small has a Thai food restaurant. With a recommendation from the air service employees, we decided to take a chance.

Best Thai food ever! He claimed to be the best Thai food in 100 miles, but I'd give him further than that...

The weather was just too gorgeous to pass up an opportunity to kayak Byers Lake at Denali State Park...

We made the return journey to Cantwell only to find that it had rained there most of the day...

Alaska - Day Eighteen: 4695.9 miles to Cantwell, AK

The nearby Alyeska Tramway was a little too fancy and a lot too expensive but we were camped right next to the Winner Creek hand-tram.

The hike to the tram was easy. But when we got to the landing, the tram was on the other side of the creek. After a lot of fruitless pulling and a bit of thinking, we realized what we were doing wrong and brought the tram back to our side. We also quickly learned why they suggested having gloves. Would have been good to know before hand...

It was surprising just how far down that creek was and how long it takes to drag yourself across...

Just before getting back to Anchorage, there is a spring on the side of the highway where the locals go to get good fresh drinking water. And since we were in need of new drinking water, we stopped. Unfortunately the parking is on the other side, the speed limit is 55 mph and it is much too close to a corner. But we did it and it was worth it. The water was so cold and refreshing and tasty that we tended to hoard it for as long as we could...

Being unsure of when we'd get a chance to buy cheap souvenirs again, we went back to downtown Anchorage to shop and buy Chris a pair of non-leaking tennis shoes at Costco.

The views on the Parks Hwy between Anchorage and Cantwell were beautiful! We even caught a glimpse of Denali from the South Viewpoint at Denali State Park...

As we neared Broad Pass (elev. 2,400 feet), the temperature went from 75 to 56 and raining in about 10 minutes!

Thank goodness it wasn't raining when we arrived at our campground in Cantwell. Cantwell RV Park was by far the cleanest and friendliest campground we stayed in on our entire trip! It was so nice we decided to stay a second night when we realized we would have to drive all 126 miles back to Talkeetna to take a flight over Denali... :(

I decided I should take a picture of our sweet little set-up in the van. It was 9:15pm when I took it. Take note of the sunshine in the front window. Crazy, huh???