Fri June 13

This is Ila writing with Phyllis and Linda dictating. We haven't been able to blog since Thursday evening so are going to separate the days just so we can know what we have been doing. We are using computer at the bed & breakfast because can't get ours to work tonight either.

We went to Eielsen Air Force base and met up with about 10 other people for a tour of the base. The Air Force personnel guided the tour and it was somewhat limited because they had exercises going on so some places were "off limits." But Ila had wanted to see this base because her brother was stationed there during his tour of Army duty in the early 50's. We got some nice pictures and will have to share them another time. When we were just ready to board our bus at one stop point, a mother moose and her young calf came out of the timber and across the road. The Air Force guy said that sometimes they get out on the runway because there is no fence between the base and the timber.

Then we stopped at the North Pole to see Santa's workshop there. Mr and Mrs Santa were there along with some of the reindeer. One reindeer had an itch and was having a terrible time trying to scratch because it couldn't get around the huge antlers. We aren't sure how it was even able to hold its head up because those antlers were so large.

Then we went on down the road toward Denali National Park. We stopped for lunch at Nenana and there we met a lady originally from Ottumwa whose mother was Greg Comstock's sister. The lady's name was Marg Riley. She and her husband lived in Nenana and he had won the Iditerod in 1977. What a small world!

We got lunch supplies in Cantwell for the 8-hour trip into Denali the next day. We spent the night at Mary's Mt McKinley View Lodge -- no heat, no phone, no TV, no internet, small room, pinned the curtains closed to keep out the nighttime daylight. It wasn't the best place we have stayed but the price was right. At that point in time, we were looking for that. We COULD see Mt McKinley from our window but not the top because there were clouds.