Denali National Park

 Luckily, we’re still on east coast time and get up and leave before we

were actually planning to and I figure it can’t be that long to drive 100 miles. We see a moose on our way up who’s just casually crossing the road and it’s getting foggy of course. We keep track of places we want to stop on the way back down since we’re on a time table, but have to stop once for more gas and bathrooms. And while we hit construction where there is only one lane and no pavement, we make good time and it

only takes two hours or so. We head to the visitor’s center, get Oscar’s junior ranger book and look at the displays of animals in the park. We grab a bite to eat at the café and catch the shuttle bus to the dog sled kennels. We get to meet and see the dogs before the demonstration and most of the dogs sit on their houses and just watch for food, but a couple are letting people touch them. One comes over to Oscar immediately and is licking him, letting him pet her and when John comes over, jumps on him. She’s so eager to see both of them and when other people

  come over to pet her, she goes back to her house and doesn’t want anything to do with anyone else. So, Oscar decides she’s for us. And guess what? Because we live in Michigan, that’s an actual option….so, we get to fill out adoption paperwork to possibly adopt a sled dog from Denali. We even go back to the kennels the next day on our way through to see the dog on our own. She greets us again, but we find out that she is 1 year

old and they retire when they’re 9. But the ranger tells us she might be retired early because she’s small for what they want in a sled dog. We’ll see if that works out or not. We watch the demonstration of 5 dogs running their summer sled around the track. It’s interesting and it’s the Centennial celebration of Denali having sled dogs to patrol the park with. We head back to the visitor’s center to get some lunch and then head to the car to go to the bus depot and catch our 4 hour tour through the park.