The saga continues...
Day 9: (Sunday) We drove from Healy to Denali. Denali is also the town just outside of the park. We drove into the Park and got a feel for everything, watched a video and just walked around the visitor area. Even managed a small hike. Bought our bus ticket and headed back to town. We found a camp spot for the night and did our laundry. The highlight was dinner at the "World Famous Salmon Bake" restuarant. A friend of mine had told me about it, so we had to give it a try. It was very, very good, again if you are in the area you will enjoy it. Called it a night.
Day 10: (Monday) Got up and headed into the park to get on the bus, there is no food available once you leave the visitor center, so if you take a bus tour, you have to bring food. No problem, we were prepared for the apocolypse in the camper, so food wasn't a problem. We got on the bus and away we went. Well, we have to say that it really wasn't that much fun, our tour bus driver was really insane about noises when we got near any animals, pretty much made the bus ride very oppressive. We saw moose, grizzlies, caribou, Dall sheep and best of all the mountain was crystal clear, which is very rare. The mountain is very impressive. We got to about the half way point and decided to call it and jumped a bus back to the visitor center/truck. The driver really drove us to it, not fun at all. Bummer really.
Day 11: (Tuesday) Took our time, got everything ready and headed out toward Anchorage. We hit Anchorage and took care of some business and of course had to stop by the "Great Alaskan Bush Company" and picked up a t-shirt for a buddy that had been there in the past and he really wanted a shirt from there so I had to get him one. In case you are wondering, its a strip joint.
We decided against heading down to Seward, we at this point were just beat. We talked about it and felt it was time to head back. We figured we would head back and do the coastal thing the next time (and fly when we do.) We rolled out of Anchorage and headed toward Glenellen, AK. We stopped at a glacier, did a quick walk around, cooked dinner and hit the road to make it to Glenellen. We found a spot and boondocked it for the evening.
Day 12: (Wednesday) Got up and continued toward Tok on the "Tok" cutoff. We got into Tok and refueled. The plan was to head up a smaller road and cut over to the the "Top of the world" highway toward Dawson City. We turned onto the road and shortly afterword, there was a sign that said the road was closed approximately 100 miles up the road, so we turned around and decided we would really head home after that. We sailed down the Alcan to Whitehorse, YT. Did I mention that the 100 miles of the Alcan south of Beaver Creek is crap?, yep, it sucked as bad the second time. We made it into Whitehorse right at dinner time, so we found a place, it was absolutely awesome. Darcie had Musk Ox Strogonoff (very, very good), I had a Bison Steak that was also very good. (We are both drawing a blank on the name, it was something like Yukon Ribs and something...) Again, if you are in the area, it is worth it. We met a very nice local couple and had a great conversation. We finished dinner and headed toward an RV spot for the night. Met a couple from Washington, who had left on August 6, it was September 15, they were finally heading home.
Day 13: (Thursday) Got into gear and rolled out. We continued down the Alcan. We decided that because we had taken the "west" route on the way up, we continued down the Alcan toward Laird Hot Springs. Very, very cool, we had a long soak, dinner and called it a night.
Day 14: (Friday) We continued down the Alcan and have to say that the area south of Laird, BC, is extremely scenic. We saw tons of forest Caribou, in fact stopping to let them cross the road a couple of times. We saw "Rock" sheep also. We made it to Dawson Creek and called it a night.
Day 15: (Saturday) Pretty much anything south of there is pretty anti-climatic, not much to see here folks, just windshield time. We made it to the US border and crossed over and stopped in Shelby, MT.
Day 16: (Sunday) Shelby, MT to just south of Jackpot, NV, we called it a day.
Day 17: (Monday) Wilds of Nevada to home. Ending mileage from door to door was 8040 miles. So from Deadhorse, AK to home was 4631 miles. Needless to say we were done...
I will get the pics up in the next day or so, still in recovery mode, had a bunch of house/outside cleaning to do, so haven't had too much down time. We took two spare tires and didn't need them, the truck ran flawlessly, the camper worked perfectly, just can't complain about that.
Jack
. Great report! Just one question: How come you delayed getting back home by only a week? 
