Day 4

Yesterday, we woke up amazingly refreshed from our night in the lovely Nord Haven Motel just north of Denali. $165, but two wonderful queen beds and a nice breakfast. The only other motel was $120 with horrible beds and no breakfast, so it was worth it!
We drove back into Denali and put a stamp in our parks passport at the Vistor's Center, then went to the sled dog demonstration. Rosie loved it! It was so cool to see all those dogs and actually watch one of the rangers run around a gravel track with a sled dog team. Balto come to life!
We hiked the Rock Creek trail, about 2.5 miles, walking along a ridge with beautiful views. We saw two moose feeding and playing in a creek and took some great photos, to be uploaded later.
We drove back into the park 15 miles to Savage River, walked up to Savage Rock and then partway along the Savage River trail.
Steve finally managed to pull me out of Denali but oh how I hated to leave. What an absolutely gorgeous place. I could cheerfully spend a week -- if I didn't have to go everywhere on those buses.
We took about two hours or a little more to get to Fairbanks. What a plain little town this is, very drab. However, I had connected with an Alaska birder to take us on a tour of the Creamer's Field bird refuge. At the last minute she couldn't go so she connected me with a 15-year-old bird phenom who took us around the refuge. I added about 7 or 8 new bird species for me. The mosquitoes were atrocious but it was worth it. When I got back to the car, realized our mosquito head nets were in my back pocket!!
Today it's up the Haul Road, otherwise known as the Dalton Highway to the Arctic Circle!