The Great Alaskan Adventure - Day 3

July 12, 2013 - Drive to Denali (Mt. McKinley)

Today we took the took the 4 hour drive north from Anchorage to Denali National Park, home of Mt. McKinley (Denali) the highest mountain peak in North America at 20,320 feet.  Below is our first view of the mountain form just outside Wasilla.

While we were driving we saw several cars stopped on the side of the road with people taking pictures of something, we stopped and had our first wildlife sitting - a moose! 

The also have several vista points on the side of the rode where to can pull off and get picture of Denali. 

We arrived at our hotel in late afternoon.  We were staying at the McKinney Village Lodge - it was a nice place that sat right on the Nenana River. 

Main Lodge

Our Building 

Nenana River and a rainbow!

After checking in we drove about 15 miles north to Healy for dinner.  We found the 49th State Brewing Company.  Good food and great beer - you can't go wrong.   The have an outdoor beer garden and indoor dining room - we chose to eat indoors, since we had not purchased out bug spray and are quickly learning there are a lot of mosquito's in Alaska! 

There at the restaurant the have the bus from the movie "Into the Wild", it is a piece of the set form the movie.   The original bus still sits in the park. 

After dinner it was back to the hotel and off to bed - we have to meet our bus for our tour at 6:40 tomorrow morning.