Day 16- Denali

June 27

We all needed a sleep in day.  We started moving around about 10.  We all kinda fended for ourself for breakfast and just kinda hung out most of the morning.

I got a call from Tim who was having issues with the truck.  I'm reasonably confidant of what's wrong and it's probably easier to just leave it for me when I get home.  Not a hard fix, I've done it several times, just an area the wears down every few years and needs rebuilding.

We all fended for ourselves for lunch as well, although I found out later that was probably a mistake.  

The plan for today was the Denali visitors center and some hiking.  The visitor's center was really good.  We talked to a ranger about what to do in the park.  For being 2 in the afternoon she was very energetic and excited about all things Denali.  In the time I was in line she repeated the same info 4 times, plus us.  I told her what we were up to and she gave us some awesome recommendations.  I wanted to confirm what types of sheep we had seen and she loved my pics.  I then showed her the pic of the survey marker.  She flipped out.  It was like I showed her a pot of gold.  She wanted to know exactly where I found it and her and her coworker were going to go find it first chance she had.

We of course had to visit the gift shop to buy things we didn't need.  We made it out with only a few stickers for the camper, Summer's scrap book and a water bottle.

After we were off to drive into the park.  You're only allowed to drive yourself 15 miles into the park.  We got out and walked down to the river.  From there we could see a caribou just chilling under the bridge.

There was supposed to be great fishing but you had to hike about 30 minutes blazing your own trail along a river.  I unfortunately could not get any of the girls to go.  

On the way back we stopped at a point called Savage Cabin.  There just happened to be a tour group there so we were able to join in.  There girls had been getting increasingly cranky so we planned to go to dinner and then come back for the hike.  

We got to the restaurant.  I had been wearing my bear spray on my belt.  It has a trigger lock of sorts but somehow it got knocked off.  As I was getting out of the truck the trigger hit the steering wheel.  This gave  a quick shot of spray that saturated my shirt and then hit and coated the door.  Luckily the door was open and it only sprayed for a fraction of a second.  It also was such a close shot that it did't atomize.  So while my belly and left hand got coated, we didn't inhale any.   30 seconds later the burning started.   Got to the bathroom and tried to wash it off.  After 20 minutes my hands and arm was feeling reasonably ok but because my shirt and shorts were saturated and touching my skin it continued to burn.   

I hated to have to cancel the hike so I wasn't that upset when it started raining.  We got back and I jumped into the shower.  Soap and water didn't work as well as it said it should on the internet.  Luckily the burning wore off after an hour or so.  

The raining stopped so the girls had a little fire.  Hopefully tomorrow we can get that hike in.  It's been super hot here.  And for being so far north the sun is pretty intense.  I also have a bus tour into Denali planned.  It goes 43 miles in.  The road actually goes 89 miles but due to thawing permafrost the bridge became unstable at the 43 mile mark and they are rebuilding.