Denali

For some reason it feels like I should show the Denali entrance sign as well.

I have a few pictures of the town as well, but nothing great. I'll be going back next week, so I'll get some more then. FWIW the Princess people seem to have taken over half the town.

I also made my first trip into Denali yesterday. It was as beautiful as I remember it. I'll share three pictures here.

The first picture is from the Parks Highway driving up to Denali. I like it because it shows the fireweed growing on the side of the road and the mountain range in the distance.

It's 6 p.m., Tuesday evening. There's a knock at the front window. It's the squirrel. I open the front door. "What's up squirrel?"

"Another beautiful day" he says, pausing and looking at the clear sky. "You got any more of those white corn tortillas?"

"Yeah, sure, just a minute." I step back inside to get him a tortilla, and he comes to the doorway and looks inside. "Hey, nice place. You got heat in here?"

I hand him the tortilla. "Yeah, a Monitor 2200. A free-standing kerosene heater, over there" I say, pointing to the unit in the living room.

It's easy to forget how REALLY REALLY BIG the Denali mountain range is, even if you live here.

While doing a little cleaning on the computer I realized I never posted a couple of pictures taken one and two days before the smoke from the fires hit town. The clear, bright picture is the normal view from the top of the hill looking into Talkeetna, and the much darker picture is from the night before I learned about the fires.

Here's the before picture: