It poured rain all night last night and was still raining when we woke up this morning; so glad we were under the overhang! As we were packing up today, a car pulled into the parking lot; it was the pastor! He was there nice and early getting ready for the service. His name was Harold and he talked to us for quite a while. He didn't seem to mind at all that we camped under the overhang (we looked around yesterday for someone to ask permission, but didn't have any luck finding anyone). He opened the church and since he knew we were waiting until the grocery store opened, invited us to wait inside where it was warm, that sure was nice! We really enjoyed our cereal and milk for something different. The rain continued all morning. It was really cold and before we got on the road, I was shivering, even with all of my layers, but luckily once we got riding we warm up enough so that we are comfortable. Shortly after leaving Talkeetna, we lost the great shoulder we had before. The shoulder got small just in time for the traffic volume to pick up. For about 15 miles, we battled the rain, cold, small shoulder, mist clouds from the vehicles, and the vehicles themselves (many of which didn't make any effort to give us space, the worst ones being the giant tour buses-those are always really scary when they go by). Eventually, we crossed a bridge and found a wonderful shoulder, one that was probably 4x as wide as the one we were just riding on. About 10 miles later, we got to the town of Willow, where there were bike paths paralleling the road! It was perfect. We were about to go to find a place to make lunch when we saw a sign at the grocery store for subs. They had a great deal on subs and so we all decided to do that for lunch. It was wonderful! Joey and I even got an order of waffle fries for everyone to split too. The rain continued as we rode down the bike path. Clay got a flat tire on his rear wheel, so we had a little break to fix that too. When we got to the town of Houston, we learned that there was a huge fair there yesterday where they were giving away a ton of free food and had a bunch of activities. That made us a little sad because that would have been a lot of fun! As we continued on down the bike path, I noticed that I was feeling more and more tired, probably a combination of the wind and riding on the path (because they are never graded as nice as the road is and the tree roots tent to make them pretty bumpy). One of the guys we met in Houston told us that there were showers about 8 miles from there at a laundrymat/campground. Clay really wanted a shower, so we stopped so he could take one. We figured that since we would be to Anchorage tomorrow, we might as well just save 8 bucks and wait until then to take one. As we were getting close to Wasilla there was a fire works stand that had a bunch of "fun" vehicles outside from the bat mobile, to a double decker bus, to a VW bug van painted with "peace and love." We had contacted the Warm Shower's host in town, but again, didn't have any luck, everyone must be out enjoying the last bit of summer, winter is coming fast up here in AK! Since it was so cold, windy and wet, Clay wanted to stay at a hotel and said he would treat if we could find one for around 50 bucks. So, we went to the only motel we saw to check it out. I waited with the bike and the boys went in to see what they could find out. It was a pretty sketchy area and I wasn't feeling too comfortable there, but I figured it couldn't be that bad. The boys said that when they rang the bell for them to open the office door, it took the lady a long time to get there to open it and when she did the first thing she said was "I washed my hands," which they thought was strange. They asked about a room and the possibility of just setting a tent up on the property under an overhang if there was one. The lady seemed to think that would be a fine idea and told the boys to go look around and see if they could find a place. They walked around and while they were looking, the ambulance showed up. I was a little uneasy about the place because all of the people that were standing outside of their room or sitting in their car disappeared into their rooms pretty quick when the EMT's got there, it was really strange. The boys came back and told me that there was no overhang anywhere like the lady said there was and while we were standing there, one of the EMT's whispered to Clay with a recommendation not to stay there, which by that time we had already figured out. Later that night, someone told us that Wasilla was the "meth capitol of AK," which after that little experience it could very well be true. So, we went to plan B, Joey and my usual quest if it is raining: a pavilion. Turns out we found the perfect place, just in time for it to really start to pour! There was a HUGE pavilion next to a baseball field and VFW. Joey went inside the VFW to ask if we could set up our tents under there and they didn't seem to have any problem with it, so we had found our home for the night! As we were setting up a kid, Eric, who lived over at the dormitory type buildings near by stopped by to talk to us. Although he wasn't 100% sure if it would be ok, he invited us to stay inside there, but had to check first. In the meantime, we were planning on going out so that we could treat Clay to a beer since he had treated us to so much, so we re-packed our tents in case we could stay where Eric lived and rode over to the Brewery nearby that Eric told us about. We invited Eric to join us and so he met us there. We had a great time and enjoyed some great food. The 3 guys split a pizza and I had the special which was lemon peppered chicken Alfredo and a house salad, it was heaven. Eric got a call from the guy in charge of the building that he was living in and he found out that there was no place for us to go like he was hoping, but it wasn't a big deal at all because we had a huge pavilion that would keep us nice and dry. When it came time to pay, although the plan was for Joey and I to treat Clay for all the times he treated us, he still made it so he would pay, in fact, Clay and Eric split the bill; but at least we got to leave the tip. We have been a little spoiled the last few days, but also very appreciative. Eric and especially Clay have helped us so much. After a great evening we headed back and reset up our tent. It was really cold, windy, and pouring rain so we went to bed pretty much right away once we had everything all set up. What an interesting day we had today. We rode 59.88 miles today.
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Since we went to bed a bit late last night, we were a little sleepy when we woke up this morning. At first there was a sunny sky, but by the time we had our oatmeal and got everything packed, the clouds had rolled in and it looked like it was going to rain again. Not too long into our ride we noticed there were convoys of old WWII vehicles traveling by! They were doing some kind of drive around Alaska for I believe the 70th anniversary of the completion of the Alaskan Highway. It was pretty fun seeing all the old vehicles! At one point we were riding along and stumbled on a restaurant/cafe! Clay really enjoys going out for a cup of coffee, and we love our hot cocoa too, so we decided to stop for a break. They had cinnamon rolls, so we all got one of those too. What a perfect treat! Although they weren't as huge as the ones we had a couple days ago, they were equally as yummy. The restaurant was supposed to have a great view of the south side of Mt. McKinley, but it was too cloudy for us to see it. By the time we were ready to go however, the clouds parted slightly and we could get a little glimpse of the hidden mountain. Eventually we made it to the town of Trapper Creek. It was still kind of yucky out, but at least there was no rain yet. The three of us stopped in the Trapper Creek Trading Post that included a restaurant. Somehow we decided to eat out again since french fries and a burger sounded so heavenly. For the second time today, Clay wouldn't let us pay and treated us to great food again. We definitely owe him a beer or something after all of this! The majority of the day all we had was rain, rain, rain. It's never fun to ride in the rain, but I wasn't too upset because we have been blessed with so many days of beautiful weather. Luckily there was a pretty good shoulder on the road so we were able to get a little further from the cars and trucks with their mist clouds. Our planned stop for the night was Talkeetna. There is a Warm Shower's host there, but unfortunately we weren't able to get a hold of them. We rode around the area for a little bit and looked for a place with an overhang so we could get out of the rain. Our tried and true came through again and we camped at the Baptist Church in town. It was so nice to get out of the rain; it would have been very unpleasent to set up, cook, eat, and clean in the rain. Since the grocery store was so close we made a trip over there and decided to get a rotisserie chicken to split between the three of us. It turned out to be a great idea, what a yummy dinner! While we were at the store, we met another guy who was originally from Hornell, NY! We also bought some cookies to snack on and Clay even surprised us with a little "adult juice box" of wine when we got back to the church! A great ending to a cold wet day. Today was a lot more fun than it would have been if it was just Joey and I, the more the merrier! At one point after dinner, an RV pulled into the church parking lot. The guy came over to talk to us after he saw we were there and we found out he was from Arizona and that he planned to "camp" at the church too. Somehow, the church even had wi-fi, so I watched a little bit of Americas Funnies Home Videos on Netflix before bed. We rode 51.63 miles today.
The train woke us up a couple times last night, and boy was it loud. It reminded me of the time we camped at the rest area outside of Prince George and we were right next to the tracks; being that close in a tent makes you feel like the train is coming right for you and is going to run right into your tent. Joey told me this morning that for one of the trains I didn't wake up fully but instead hid behind him; apparently it scared me a bit, haha. The clouds in the sky were dark and rainy looking, so we weren't too optimistic about the riding conditions today. Not to mention it was really cold. We had all of our cold gear on today for the first time in a while. It had to be somewhere in the 40s. The miles went a lot quicker today since we didn't have as strong of a wind as yesterday. At one point we came upon what looked like the start of a hotel, but it was all boarded up like the builder ran out of money. It was pretty neat because it was in the shape of a giant igloo! We walked around it and the door was wide open so we could explore inside. The carpentry work in there was awesome; too bad that it never got finished. At about the 16 mile mark we found a rest area that was fit with a free campground! There was a pavilion and picnic tables, so we decided to have lunch since we didn't think there would be anything like this for a while. Joe and I made some rice and Clay even let us try his secret topping for rice: parmesan cheese; so now we have another option for our rice! It rained off and on for the first 30 miles of today's ride, but to our surprise, the clouds separated and we got sunshine for the later part of the day! When we were ready to make camp, we decided that we would share a campsite at Byers Lake Campground in Denali State Park. It was so nice to share the cost of a campground and get to enjoy it with someone else too. We made some mac and cheese for dinner and enjoyed relaxing for a little bit. Right before bed, a guy came walking into our site with a plate of grilled chicken wings! One of his friends had seen us as we were riding into the campground and they thought we might like some wings, and of course we would! He invited the three of us over to their site for a beer, too. We got to relax by the fire, enjoy chicken wings and baked beans, share some great conversation with the 4 guys and the one guy's daughter, and even get to pet some cute doggies named Maggie, Sam and Bella!! The day couldn't have turned out any better. I love when things like this happen because it really makes this trip so much fun, what a great surprise to get to enjoy some chicken wings! From a cold dreary morning to sunshine to chicken wings, it can't get much better than that! Our miles totaled 56.17 today.
We woke up a little bit late this morning, but that was ok since we were so tired yesterday. We took our time getting ready and having our breakfast this morning. We also got a phone call from a lady who works for the Finger Lakes Times who was going to write a story on our trip! She interviewed both of us asking a bunch of different questions, some of which were tough to answer because we had to sort through 5 months of memories to try to answer the question and a lot of times we had a number of different events or stories that could have answered the question. I had a very hard time eating my oatmeal for some reason today; I think that once it got cold that was the problem. Joe took a walk this morning to return the "Hike Denali" book to Brian a few sites down from us. He was gone for quite a while, but when he came back I found out that he had been talking to Clay (the cyclist from Haines who rode from there to Denali) and even enjoyed a glass of wine while he was over there. Clay was originally planning on taking the train from Denali down to Anchorage, but would have been quite a bit early for his ferry which doesn't leave until Aug. 27th, but Joey talked him into riding down to Anchorage with us! So, once we got all packed up, we met up with Clay and headed out of town. We had quite a bit of a head wind and it was again pretty hilly, but having someone else to ride with always helps the miles go by faster. Clay rides about the same speed I usually do so it was nice that I had someone to talk to pretty much the whole time. Joey, being the fast one still, would wait for us at the top of the hills like he usually does. There was a coffee shop half way between Denali and Cantwell that Clay had stopped at on the way in and wanted to stop at again. We of course had no problem stopping for a little break. Joey and I each got a great cup of hot cocoa with whipped cream and the three of us ended up ordering a "Jumbo Homemade Cinnamon Roll." Little did we know, but "Jumbo" really was Jumbo. Each roll filled up the entire plate and was pretty much a full meal in itself. Those rolls were awesome though! Since Clay was the one that wanted to go out, he insisted that he treat us and wouldn't let us pay. He said that he saved a bunch of money not taking the train and that we are on a much tighter budget than he is, which was true. As we were sitting there enjoying our hot cocoa, it started to rain a little, but didn't last too long. At one point, a guy came into the cafe to our table and said "You are from Buffalo!?!" He must have saw the little signs on our bikes. We found out that he was from Hornell, NY! He gave us a 20 and said to treat ourselves to a beer, and then he left. We were shocked! Again, the whole generosity from strangers is unbelievable. After our incredible cinnamon rolls, we got back on the road, with the wind still pretty strong. It was only about 13 more miles until we reached the little town of Cantwell that lies at the intersection of the Parks Hwy and Denali Hwy. On the way there, we saw one of the rental RVs parked in a pull off. As we got closer, we realized that it was the couple from Switzerland that we keep seeing! It was neat to get to see them again, that makes it the 3rd different place that we've seen them. They talked with us for a moment and even gave us some more of the little cookie bar treats from Switzerland. We stopped for a quick break in Cantwell and then continued on down the road. We climbed up Broad Pass, which was exactly like it sounds, very broad. Although it wasn't steep it took a while to get to the top because of that darn wind. When we got to the top we were all ready to be done for the day and so we started looking for a good spot. The only place we could find was right next to the train tracks, which was inevitable since it paralleled the road. Joe made some make shift bike stands out of some extra RR ties that were sitting nearby and we got our tent all set up. Joe and Clay took a walk to the nearby lake to get some water and we had Mac and Cheese for dinner before heading to bed. A great day even with the wind. The miles seemed to fly by since Clay was there to talk to; oh how I love when someone joins our "riding team!" We rode 36.76 miles today, that wind definitely put a damper on us today (along with getting a late start to the day).
For some reason we didn't sleep very good last night, well, Joey couldn't sleep (it was after 3 before he finally did) and kept waking me up to tell me so. The alarm went off at 5 and shortly later we got a phone call from Joey's dad (Joey asked both him and his mom to call just to make sure we were up so we didn't miss our bus). We ate our leftover pizza from last night for breakfast so we didn't have to worry about shoving down our oatmeal (we bought the wrong kind of oatmeal in Tok, not to mention 2 5lb bags of it...and its horrible... ugh) or washing dishes. It was really cold this morning again, probably in the 40s. We only had our shorts on because we knew it would get pretty warm later that day. Our walk to the wilderness access center where the bus departed from was quick since we were trying to stay warm. We arrived about 35 minutes before the bus left but it was nice and warm inside where we waited. There was a short 18 minute video on the early years of Denali National Park that we watched to kill some time. The bus ride was pretty fun to start. The scenery of course was incredible, which made me wish we were on our bikes so we could really enjoy it, but the road with all of the dust and gravel made me happy we weren't. Our first glimpse of Mt. McKinley was around mile 9 where we saw just a little bit way off in the distance. As we continued on we saw a bunch of wildlife from moose to bears and caribou, many of which were too far away to get any good pictures of. It was funny to watch everyone when someone spotted an animal because the bus driver would stop, everyone would run to the window with their cameras and you would see a ton of camera lenses stuck out the side of the bus. At one point we were driving along and we had a caribou running right towards us! We had a few short rest stops to get out and stretch our legs, which were great because my legs were getting so cramped from sitting for so long I cant remember the last time we just sat in a vehicle for such a long time like that. Somewhere along the park road we saw a couple touring cyclists on mountain bikes riding out to see the mountain. It made me wish I was riding too, until they were engulfed in the cloud of dust behind the bus. It's really too bad that there are SO many buses because otherwise it would be a pretty enjoyable ride. I overheard a guy on the bus give a little chuckle and say "Now that doesn't look fun," referring to the cyclists riding up the mountain pass. All I could think was that he had no concept of what it was like and how rewarding it could be on the bike. I wonder what people in their cars say as they drive by us when we are riding. Although our bus started out only 3/4 full, we picked up some hikers/campers along the way out to see the mountain. We met a nice lady from Arkansas and a guy from Missouri who we talked with for a while on the bus. At one point, we came around one of the mountains, and there it was, Mt. McKinley! It was unbelievable. There were a couple tiny clouds in front of it, but we lucked out and got to see it on a clear day. I was so glad that we decided to take the bus and that we didn't miss seeing the Mountain! For lunch, we stopped at the Eilson Visitor center. We got to enjoy our pb and jelly sandwiches and chees its overlooking the mountain! As we continued on down the road, I couldn't take my eyes off McKinley because it was just so massive and overpowering. It definitely made sense that it is the tallest mountain in North America. The bus stopped at Wonder Lake and then we started the return trip. We stopped at all the same stops on the way back. For some reason, we saw a lot more wildlife during the second half of the bus trip and a good majority of it was right on the side of the road where we could get a good look at it. We had a bear walk across the road along with 2 other caribou. As we got further and further away from the mountain, we noticed that the clouds were starting to come out and that parts of the mountain were now hidden, our timing was perfect. Ever since we got into Alaska I kept hoping for a nice sunny day for when we went to see the mountain, we were so lucky we did because the majority of the time it is too cloudy to see it well. We were both really sleepy during the ride back but didn't want to miss anything so we made sure to stay awake. By the time we got back to our starting point it was getting close to 6pm, over 11 hours since we had left. We said goodbye to the nice couple we had met and walked back to our campsite. It is fun being in this campground because we as the time goes, we see more and more familiar faces as we walk through; the Swiss couple, the guy from Holland, Brian, Clay and the couple from Germany; its almost like a little community here because a lot of people spend multiple days here to enjoy the park. While we were getting ready to go into town, we saw Brian who was heading the same direction. He told us about a bus that goes into town (after the normal free buses stop), so we took the bus in with him. We were so tired and glad that we decided to go out to eat again. We went to a place called "The Prospectors" where, again, got a pizza. Lucky for us, pizza always sounds good while on these types of trips, even if we just had it the day before. Pizza seemed to be the most reasonably priced food in town too. I got a little side salad with our pizza because I was really in the mood for salad too. It was a little chilly as we walked back along the trail to our campsite, but its only a mile or two so it didn't take us too long. Right when we got back we went straight to bed, so sleepy that we felt like we could sleep until noon without any problem. In the end, we were glad that we stuck with our original plan to take the bus in to see the mountain.
It got really cold last night, probably in the high 30s, low 40s. Luckily we had our sleeping bags zipped together so I wasn't totally frozen. We slept in a little today because we didn't really have any schedule for today but to go on a hike at some point. As we were having breakfast and trying to figure out what would be a good hike to go on, we met a guy named Brian who gave us some helpful insight on some good trails near where we were, and even let us borrow his "Hike Denali" book for a day! As we were on our way to the Wilderness Access Lodge to catch the free bus to the Visitor Center, we met a nice group of people who we ended up talking with for quite a while as we were walking to the Lodge and on the bus to the visitor center. They seemed pretty interested in our trip and we had a great time talking with them. From the visitor center we left on our hike up the Mt. Healy trail. At first, we had a bit of a hard time finding where that trail started and somehow ended up making a big circle and ended up back at the Visitor Center. With a little extra hiking in, we finally figured out exactly where we were going and got our planned hike under way. The explanation of this hike said that the difficulty level was "strenuous" and that it was about 4 and a half miles long. It was a fantastic hike. As we got higher and higher up the mountain the view of the valley was just wonderful. There were parts that were particularly steep (up to 25% grade) with an average width of about 24 inches. We got pretty warm on the climb up, but luckily there were patches of shade from the trees here and there. As we got closer to the top, we were out in the open air with a wonderful breeze to cool us off, to go along with the steep switchbacks of the trail as we ascended. When we reached the top we had gained about 1,700 feet of elevation. It was so beautiful. We had a great view of the park entrance area and the surrounding mountains; we could even see the tip of Mt. McKinley faded off in the distance, our first glimpse of the mountain! I felt like I could sit up there for hours, but since we hadn't eaten lunch and it was already around 3, we only stayed for about 20 minutes. Surprisingly, the descent wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be (usually that is my least favorite part because it's hard to get traction). We got back to the visitor center just under 4 hours from when we left. From there we decided that we would treat ourselves to a dinner out again. There was a free bus into "town," but it only ran until about 6:15, so we knew we would be walking back to the campground (which was probably a good thing after eating). We were both so hungry and surprisingly all we wanted was pizza again. Luckily it worked out that pizza seemed to be the most affordable meal in the area. We had met a couple while waiting for the free bus and the ended up going to the same place we did for dinner. s we were finishing up our pizza, the lady walked over and gave us 3 more pieces that they were too full to eat! She didn't want them to go to waste and even though we were getting full, we were happy to take them. We ended up taking a couple pieces of pizza back to the campground, but we weren't worried because it gets cold enough at night now that they would still be fine in the morning (especially since the campground has nice bear proof food lockers). We stopped at the little grocery store in town to get some bread for sandwiches and fruit to take on the bus for lunch tomorrow on our walk back. With that walk back and all the hiking we did today we probably covered about 8 or 9 miles today. As we were walking through the campground on our way to our site we saw a guy riding what looked like a touring bike and sure enough he was touring. We stopped to talk to him (Clay) and found out that he is from Haines, Ak and is riding from there up to Haines Junction, following the same path we did until Delta Junction, and then took the Denali Highway to here. It was pretty neat because he said he left home on July 20th, so he was only a couple days behind us! As we walked further through the campground, a guy called out to us and said "are you the bicyclists?" Since we weren't paying attention, we didn't know who said it at first, but then we realized it was the Swiss couple that gave us the treats from Switzerland back at the visitor center in Nenana! We couldn't believe they recognized us without our bikes and bike clothes! Joey and I talked with them for a while and heard about how their time in Denali has been so far. The man even showed us some of his pictures, including pictures of the Northern Lights that he took at the campground around 1 or 2am the other night! We were so happy to hear that there is hope for us seeing the lights in the sky! After we got re-settled back at our campsite we decided to walk back to the Mercantile to use the internet and take showers. The showers were not included in our campsite cost and were $4 each, so we figured the best time to take our shower would be after hiking and before we took the bus tomorrow. The shower was so great, and the best part is the campground provided towels, so we didn't have to worry about having to wash ours already. When I came out from my shower, Joey was talking to a nice couple from Germany who were traveling by public transportation only and were looking into possibly getting bikes so they could tour like us. The Mercantile had ice cream cones (on a waffle cone!), so I splurged and got an one. The guy scooping was super nice and gave me samples of the flavors (there were only 4). One was a blackberry kind, which was good, but I don't think I's want a whole cone of it and the other I tried was Caramel Caribou, which is the one I ended up getting! He asked if I wanted one or two scoops, and when I didn't answer right away he said "I give big scoops" and he sure did, so I was happy with just the one. What a great way to end a great day.
After our oatmeal we were on the road heading for Denali National Park! It was only around 11 miles to get to the park, but we had a pretty good head wind so it was still a good enough challenge to make us tired by the end of the ride. When we got to what is called by the locals as "Glitter Gulch" where there are a bunch of little shops and restaurants along with a few really nice hotels, there was even a Subway. We rode around the area there for a little bit and were happy that there were really nice paved bike paths on both sides of the road. Once we looked around for a little bit we headed towards the entrance to the park. The bike path went right out of the "town" and even had its own separate bridge over the Nenana River. It wound through the trees on the side of the road until we got to the park entrance. Our original plan was to take the bus into the park to see Mt. McKinley, but we hadn't yet figured out exactly when we were going to do that and how many days we would stay at the campground (we also wanted to do a little hiking while we were here too). Once we got to the campground registration building, we asked the people working how the buses worked. They seemed like they knew what they were talking about, but weren't very good at explaining any specifics unless you asked them a specific question based on what you wanted to do in the park (which wasn't very helpful because we didn't know exactly). We ended up booking a night at the campground (Riley Creek Campground), getting everything set up and making some lunch (we had a couple extra tortillas so we put some of our rice in them to try something new). The nice thing about the area of the campground we were staying in is that it is a "walk in only" section, so there are never any cars driving by or in sight. It is perfect for us because we were able to ride right in and not have to worry about our bikes so much because there were no vehicles that could be used to take them quickly (and when they are locked together it would be a really big chore to try to take them). We had a pretty difficult time trying to figure out what we were going to do. One option would be to take the bus, which was a little pricy, and the other option was to ride in on our bikes. We were seriously thinking about the second option even though our original plan was the first. In order for us to ride out there, we would have to get a back country permit, which was free so it wasn't a big deal, but we also had to know exactly where we would be camping each night, which is hard to know sometimes. We contemplated the ideas for a good portion of the day and when it came down to it, we decided to take the bus. We looked at the schedule for the busses, and there are ALOT of busses on the roads, to add to the all dirt road. Although it would be incredible to ride out there to really be able to take in the scenery, the dirt/gravel road wouldn't be very fun to ride on, especially since we don't have thick mountain bike wheels/tires, and the dust from all of the busses would probably be very unpleasant. Hopefully the bus will be worth it and we will be happy that we made the decision that we did. Although we have lots of time and riding out there would take up a few more days, we would like to ride to Homer and want to be able to do that without feeling rushed, so the bus will help us keep on schedule for that. After lunch, we walked over to the "Wilderness Access Lodge" to see what that was all about. From there we walked along the path for about a mile to get down to the Visitor Center. We got there just in time to hop on the free bus to go see the sled dog show!!! I was SO excited that we were going to see some real sled dogs. It was really neat because a bunch of the dogs you could walk right up to and pet, some had a little rope around their doghouse area (but you could call them over to pet them), and some were in pens (mostly because they have bad habits like eating rocks). The dogs get moved around from time to time so that they all get an equal time where they can get petted and 'resting time.' There were even 3 puppies (but they were in a pen so we couldn't really play with them which was good because there were a lot of people). While we were walking around petting all the dogs, a guy looked at my sweatshirt and said "Keuka College, is that THE Keuka College." It turns out the guy was from Penn Yan (the town 5 miles from the college)!!! And the funny thing is that he knew Jeff, Joey's landlord from when he lived off campus. What a small world! The presentation that the park ranger put on was great. She explained how every winter the dog teams are used all over in the park and that the dogs cover around 3,000 miles every winter moving equipment and supplies to the camps throughout the park. It was interesting to hear that they tried using snowmobiles, but that method still wasn't as successful as the dogs. The dogs were great for so many ways from having an instinctive knowledge on where they need to go, working great at -40 below (their ideal tempterature is -10), being environmentally friendly, right down to just being good companions while out in the middle of such a vast snow covered area. At the end of her presentation, a set of 5 dogs was hooked up to a sled and the ranger was pulled around a little track and ended right in front of the audience. It was amazing how fast the dogs really go. As the dogs were being chosen to do the run, they all got very excited since they didn't know who would get to do it. Those dogs really "love their job!" Although I know it will be amazing to see Mt. McKinley, the dog sled program will definitely remain high on my list of favorite memories from Denali. Later on, we went back to the Wilderness Access Lodge to get our tickets for the bus since we finally made our decision. While we were there, we got talking to one of the ladies that worked there and we found out that she had met Joel, the cyclist from MN that was riding from Pruedo Bay to MT, that we met on the Cassiar Hwy. The funny thing is that she had read about how he met us in his blog too! We thought that was just so neat, it is amazing how small the touring cyclist community is. We ended up getting our bus tickets for the day after tomorrow because tomorrow's busses were pretty much already full, which was fine because we wanted to go on a day hike while we were here anyways. By the time we got back to our campsite, we were hungry again and made some mac and cheese for dinner. There was a ranger talk on "Listening to Denali" that I wanted to go to at 7:30 right there in the campground. Our mac and cheese was ready just in time for us to take it with us and eat there. The rangers talk was great (and you could tell she was a former teacher based on all the interactive qualities to her presentation). She talked about some of the sound research they are working on in the park in order to document sounds they would later compare to see if anything had changed (ie a species goes extinct). I really enjoyed her presentation; it was interesting to learn about how human sounds (especially things like vehicles) affected the patterns of other animals in terms of sound. She explained how birds and other animals communicate on certain frequencies, and if there is another sound like a car or helicopter in the area that is on the same frequency level, it can cancel out the animals sound. After the ranger talk, we went back to camp and just relaxed for a while in our sleeping bags since it had gotten a little chilly out. A little while later we decided that we better do something since it wasn't that late yet. We decided to walk over to the Mercantile to use the internet for a little while. When we got there, we were shocked to see a ton of people there. There was also a camera guy and a sound guy along with a bunch of people who were working on what looked like some kind of promotional video for the park. It turns out that they were an independent film company filming an inde called "Wildlike," which is a feature length thriller. We had a lot of fun watching the production process as they did run through for the scenes (definitely didn't really get any "internet stuff" done). The best part was that they asked us to stay sitting at the picnic table we were at so we would be "extras" in the background! Who would have thought that we would get to be in the background of a scene in a movie, how cool! We were glad that we decided to go for the walk to the Mercantile, because otherwise we wouldn't have had any clue that all that was going on. While we were sitting there watching them at work, we talked to a nice guy from Holland and heard about how he took the plane into Kodiak Island to see the bears. He showed us pictures he had taken and I can't believe how big the were or how close they would get to the tour group! We had a pretty exciting day today and are loving Denali National Park already! We only rode 12.74 miles today.
It was about 10 by the time we were having breakfast. We sat on a rock by the river as we ate our oatmeal; it was very relaxing. The ride back out to the main road was again not very fun because of how bumpy and rocky it was. The road was relatively flat, with a few long gradual climbs and one or two more challenging climbs. The sun was shining beautifully again today. Our legs are still a little sore today, but they are starting to feel like they are getting back to normal. Unlike yesterday, I didn't keep up with Joey very well today. Whenever there is any kind of incline, Joey looses me and flies up the hill (but he always waits at the top =) ). After about 15 miles we saw a mileage sign and we only had about 10 miles left to get to Healy, which we thought was a ways further down the road. As we got closer to town, the hills got a little bigger. Our first stop was the library, which was surprisingly open until 4:30 today. We spent a couple hours at the library and then headed further into town to find the visitor center. When we got there we found out that is only open 4 hours a day m-f and is closed on the weekend, so it wasn't much help to us. But even still, we sat on the porch and made a late lunch of the "Cup of Soup" containers that Glenys gave to us for the road. From there we rode around to check out the churches in town to see if they would make a good place to set up our tent. One of them had construction going on and the other one didn't have any place that looked like a good spot for our tent. So we continued on. We rode back to the main road and decided to stop at the restaurant/bar to re-fill on water. After being inside and smelling how good the food was, we decided (since we didn't use Gleny's money for a campground yesterday) to use that donation to get a pizza!! While we were waiting, there were a couple free games to play at the bar including shuffle board and an arcade game table! It was neat, the game screen was visible through the top of the table and the controllers were right underneath too. We played a little pac man and were so happy that we were getting pizza since it had been so long since we had had any. It was such a great decision and it was a wonderful treat! With full, happy tummies, we left and road down the road a couple miles to Otto Lake park where we found a nice pavilion to set up in. There were picnic tables and even an outhouse we could use. We played Farkel for an hour or so and then got the food hung and relaxed the rest of the evening. It is so weird to be all by ourselves again. When we left Fairbanks, we felt like we were leaving someone behind since the Michael's weren't there riding with us. The good news is that we only have about 11 miles until we get to Denali National Park tomorrow! We rode 33.66 miles today.
We were woken up by a bunch of people hollering and screaming at each other with very vulgar language around 11 or 12. The group sounded like they were across the street, and they carried on for about what seemed like an hour. To go along with that there were 4 wheelers and dirt bikes buzzing around the streets on joy rides. The group of people made us a little worried, but eventually they went away and all was quiet again. We slept in until about 9:30 this morning since we didn't get a good sound sleep going until after midnight. Shortly after we woke up a lady who belonged to the church we were camped at pulled in. She didn't seem to mind at all that we were there and even asked us if we wanted to use the bathroom while she had the church open! Although she didn't ask about why we were camping there (she might have seen the sign on the back of our bikes and figured it out), she said that "it looks like you found a nice safe place to camp!" She had a point, we do usually feel safer sleeping next to a church. As we were packing up, a guy was walking from the store and stopped to talk to us. He was really nice; at one point he gave us a strange look when we answered his question of why we would ride all this way with "because we wanted to." He invited us to stop over at the cultural center and said he would make us a cup of hot coffee/tea/cocoa!! So off we went to the cultural center. There was a really cute sled dog type puppy (named Wolf) there too! Being the kids we are, we had hot chocolate, and it sure was a great way to start the day! We learned a little about the Nenena Ice Classic that is held every year and how it has been "An Alaskan tradition since 1917." What it involves is people placing a bet on the date right down to the minute of when the ice in the river is going to break. There is a whole process that establishes the exact time (they put a big tripod thing out in the middle of the frozen river that is attached to a cable on shore with a meat cleaver that cuts it and stops the clock); 3 people are on post at all times to watch it to make sure no one tampers with it. Last year they had over 26,000 people place bets ($2.50 a bet) and the winner won $350,000!!! After enjoying our hot cocoa, we headed over to the visitor center where we planned to have some oatmeal for breakfast. The lady running the visitor center, Glenys, was super nice! She was so interested in our trip. She let us charge our phones for a while and gave us a lot of great info on where we could see Mt. McKinley and good places to camp. Just as we were about to go outside to make some oatmeal (even though it was already almost noon) Glenys asked if we ate "Cup O' Noodles," and of course we do since we eat pretty much everything! She offered to heat up some water in the coffee pot and gave each of us a "Cup O' Noodles" for lunch!! While the water was heating up she brought out a bag of cheetos and shared those with us too!! It was so nice to have something different again, since we weren't really looking forward to having our oatmeal. A little while later, she asked if we liked little candies, and of course the answer was yes. She proceeded to give us a full brand new bag of mini chocolates that had Snickers, Milky Ways, Twix, and 3Musketeers bars!! It was a full 40 oz bag! She said if we liked those and we could carry them they were ours! We were amazed! While we let our phones charge for a little bit, we headed over to the library for a few minutes. We definitely didn't expect this town to have a library, let alone one as nice as they had. Since I hadn't yet typed my journal from yesterday, I typed that when we got back to the visitor center while Joey made some calls home. As we were sitting there a nice man from Switzerland came over and asked us about our travels. He proceeded to give us a little snack of some kind of break like cookie treat from Switzerland! It was pretty good, too! When we went back inside the visitor center to get our phones, Glenys told us a story about how the pastor at her church had said to go out this week and give a stranger who you thought would appreciate it, $10, just because (kind of like a Pay it Forward act). She then pulled out $10 for each of us (one from her and the other from her husband) and told us to put it towards anything we wanted for the trip. We couldn't believe it, but she said that we were the perfect people to give it to. I continue to be amazed at the generosity people have shown to us, but the way Glenys explained it is that "If my kids were out doing what you guys were doing, I would hope people would do this for them too." We had really taken our time today and weren't ready to start riding until it was almost 3! We were definitely dragging our feet a little today since our legs were still sore. We thanked Glenys again and headed out down the road. In comparison to yesterday, the ride was almost completely flat, which really helped our sore legs out. Our planned stop was around the 30 mile mark. Along the way, we passed a restaurant that had a whole bunch of little painted scenes you could stick your face in to take a picture. We think those are pretty fun, so we stopped and took a few pictures. A couple times during the ride we also stopped in a shady place to have a couple mini chocolate bars!! They were SO good. Glenys told us about a campground near where we planned to stop and we almost used the money she gave us to camp there, but after finding out showers were another 3 bucks a person on top of the 15 to set up our tent, we decided to save the money and wait on our showers until tomorrow when we are in Healy (which we found out is bigger than Nenena!). We did however, eat some spaghetti-os and a couple jelly/pb tortilla rolls (what the Michael's used to eat!) for dinner at one of the 'day use' picnic tables. The campground was right next to the Nenena River. After dinner we rode across the bridge and in doing so found a nice sandy type beach on the other side. We found the road/trail (that was pretty long and REALLY bumpy) that lead to the beach and had found our home for the night. Joey made some makeshift bike stands out of sticks, we got the tent all set up and Joey made a fire pit and gathered wood for a fire. We roasted marshmallows and took a little wak along the beach. Instead of hanging our food, we just put it up on the high cement barriers holding up the bridge. Another terrific day, its amazing that we keep having days like this. I can't believe today was the 5 month mark of the trip; time has gone so fast. We rode 31.10 miles today and camped next to the Nenana River near mile 275 of the Parks Highway.
We slept in quite a bit today since we went to bed so late last night. By the time we had some oatmeal and got packed up, and got on the road it was almost 11:30. We had a nice long hill to start our morning. Since we were heading to the farm where Spencer worked for lunch, we detoured off the Parks Highway for a while. I enjoyed riding on that road because there was hardly any traffic in comparison to the main highway. It took us about 50 minutes to get to the top of the main hill and it didn't take us long to find the farm from there. Although we thought that we were late for lunch, we ended up being right on time! The farm was an ecology farm where people in the community could buy shares for the year and were allotted a certain amount of fresh produce every week. We met a lot of the people that worked at the farm and enjoyed a great rice and broccoli casserole that one of the girls made. She also made raspberry scones which were amazing too! After lunch, Spencer gave us a tour of the farm and explained to us a little more about how it runs. There are a lot of school groups and other groups that come to the farm for field trips, too. It was a really interesting place and I'm glad that we had a chance to explore it a little. For the rest of today's ride, the hills continued. The road we were following eventually ended and we were back on the Parks Highway. We were starting to get a tad low on water, but weren't too worried because we figured that there would be something along the way where we could fill up from a stream or even some kind of business. Sure enough, we found a restaurant/bar/hotel about 23 miles into our ride today. It was a pretty strange bar in the fact that it had a lot of "adult humor," but either way, we didn't care because we were able to get some water. They said that the water there had a lot of calcium in it and it wasn't the best for drinking, but a really nice lady who was on her way back to Fairbanks had a gallon of water in her car that she said we could use to fill up our drinking bottles! We also met a nice guy who lived down the road a couple miles who had ridden his bike to the bar. There is a separate building there that they let him use as a workshop for his woodcarving. He showed us all of his work and explained how its made. His style of carving closely relates to the way the Indians carve, as he explained anyway. We had another big climb to do on the way to Nenana. About half way up the hill, Joey and I both stopped because we had just had a moment where we felt like we lost all energy. The sun was hot and the hill was pretty steep. I was feeling a little dizzy, but once I drank a bit of water and rested for a minute or two I felt good enough to get to the top of the hill. We had a cookie break at the top and that made all the difference. From then on we felt back up to speed and didn't have too much of a problem going the 17 miles we had left to get to the town. After that last big climb, the road flattened out a bit and the few hill that we encountered didn't phase us at all. We crossed the bridge across the Nenana River and found that the town was much bigger than we had originally thought! The first thing we came to was the visitor center, which had already closed. There were a few information boards outside that we could read, one of which explained that "Nenena" is an Athabascan word roughly translated to "a good place to camp between two rivers." Since we were so hungry, we decided to have some mac and cheese for dinner at the picnic tables outside the center. We were both so tired and sore, partly from having done a bit of running playing ultimate frisbee the other day and part because today's ride was much hillier than we have done in a while. There was a water faucet outside of the visitor center which made it easy to clean the dishes. We made our way through town to a church with a nice yard to camp in. We got everything set up as quick as possible and were ready to go to sleep right away even though it was only a little after 9. Hopefully a good nights sleep will help our tired bodies. We rode 47.16 miles today.
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