Our trip to Mt. McKinley

Have you ever seen the movie Vacation?  I always thought that it was so funny when the Grizwalds made it to the Grand Canyon.  They get out of their car, put their arms around each other, stare at it for about 30 seconds, then Clark shakes his head and says "Let's go".  THAT just about sums up our trip to Mt. McKinley on Monday.  It was a 6 hour round trip from Wasilla and it was a beautiful ride.  Mt. McKinley was very pretty to look at, being the highest peak in North America, but that's about all there is to say about it.  It sits on thousands of acres known as Danali National Park, in the middle of NOWHERE.  By the way, did you know that Danali is the original name of the mountain...but in recent years it's name was changed to McKinley after President McKinley, who never even stepped foot in Alaska.  Many Alaskans have a problem with that!  Anyway, we drove 3 hours, looked at it, and drove 3 hours back.
The trip there and back was more interesting than the mountain itself.  On the way there, we saw men on the side of the road chopping up a huge moose, blood and guts everywhere.  I'm certain that meat is in someone's freezer as I write.  You don't see that everyday at home!  We saw 3 Bald Eagles and a herd of carribou.  We also rode along side a man riding with his sled dogs, I suppose, practicing for the Iditerod.  THAT was cool.  On the way back, it was getting dark and it was -2 degrees.  We passed a man hitchhiking and made the CRAZY decision to pick him up so that he wouldn't freeze to death...and he looked like Santa Clause.  We would NEVER do that at home!  The man's name is "Bear" and we found out that he lives in a homemade shack that he built with his own hands in September.  It sits by a river and was about 30 miles from where we picked him up.  Long story short, he couldn't get his truck out of his camp because of the snow so he had hitchhiked to a job he had been offered.  When he got there, the man was drunk and would not pay him, so he was trying to get back home.  He told us that had we not picked him up, he would have slept on the side of the road in his sleeping bag until morning.  He couldn't walk much farther because his feet were so cold, they were beginning to hurt.  Bear was very nice and one of hundreds, if not thousands, of people who come to Alaska to live off of the land.  He not only built his own shelter, he also catches all of his own food.  He was very interesting.  Yesterday, we stayed at home and took it easy. The kids went swimming at an indoor pool last night.   A few minutes ago I got a call from my sister, who's on her way to work in Anchorage.  She said that it's SNOWING...maybe we'll see snow in AK after all!