We took our time getting going Thursday morning. We had all day to get up to Healy, AK since we didn't have anywhere to be until 10AM on Friday. We joined our fellow EIS Officers in the hotel hospitality suite for breakfast, said our goodbyes, and headed to the airport to pick up our rental car. We had reserved a compact car after much discussion about the need for 4-wheel drive. Several people assured us that the roads were clear and we would not have any problems in a compact car. I should perhaps specify that I'm sure they were referring to snow related problems.
We left the airport around 10:30 started our leisurely drive to Healy. We decided we would take a detour through Talkeetna, which is the jumping off point for mountaineers headed to climb Mt. McKinley. Once we arrived in Talkeetna, we walked around for a bit. It didn't take us very long to cover the entire town, and that included stopping in the one gift shop that was open in the off season. We decided we would hang out at the Denali Brewing Company for a bit. Our original plan was to have lunch there but we left Anchorage so late that we had been snacking and had spoiled our appetites. We opted for cups of seafood chowder (yum!) and Christina helped me work through a tasting flight of their different beers (also yum!).
Christina with the flight.
My turn!
From Talkeetna, we headed back out to Highway 3 and up towards Denali State Park. We were actually able to spot one of the viewpoints as we drove through the park and pulled over to check it out.
It was exactly open to cars yet, so we left ours on the side of the road and headed in on foot.
The snow was really deep. If we strayed from the trampled part too much, we found ourselves up to our knees in snow.
Mt. McKinley (I'm sure this time).
Me
Shortly after leaving the look out point, we encountered this igloo. It would have been way cooler if it had been made out of ice, but I suppose it would be hard to be a tourist site during the summer if it were...
Christina, Meagan, and Me
We arrived at our hotel (Motel Nord Haven) in Healy around 8PM. While checking in, we asked a couple of questions. Where to get dinner - not surprisingly, the options were sparse. The food options were limited to two places, the Rose's Cafe (diner food) and the The Totem Inn (diner food, plus pizza and bar). Meagan and I were pretty hungry and we opted for pizza. It was really good. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it certainly exceeded whatever it was. Christina was tired and opted to nap at the hotel while we ate.
We also asked about the Northern Lights. Prior to arriving in Alaska, we had heard that they were cyclical (22 years) and that we are currently in the bottom of the cycle. Translation - don't get your hopes up. One of our classmates had also told us that he and his girlfriend had gone up to Fairbanks for a long weekend solely to see the Northern Lights and didn't see a thing. I think we were fairly resigned to not seeing them but up for giving it a go none the less. We were slightly encouraged by the response we got from the hotel attendant. She at least gave the impression that seeing them was no big deal, it was a clear night, so why wouldn't we see them. She told us to drive about 5 miles north of town to get away from the lights around midnight, so that's what we did. Shortly after getting the car, we were sure we saw a glow in the sky. We couldn't quite convince ourselves that we were actually seeing them until we were a few miles outside of town and the green ribbon in the sky was clearly visible. We pulled off to the side of the road when we hit the 5 mile mark outside of town and started taking pictures. It took a bit of experimenting, but we finally realized that our best option was to set the exposure time to the maximum the camera would let us. Picasa helped me enhance the photos a bit since they were still a bit dark even after a 15 second exposure. I was very happy I had my tripod. After our light show, we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep. The real fun was about to begin.
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