Denali National Park

On the way to Denali. It was about a 5 hour drive from Eagle River AK. (counting the 3 stops we made) The boys did very well in the car that long. Abel ate each time we stopped and was ready to get back in the car. Once we made it to our hotel every one was ready to be done with driving!
Axel taking a break in front of our hotel. Road trips are so much fun.
This is our hotel-on the edge of a cliff-right outside of Denali Park. The hotel was call Grande Denali Lodge. It had an amazing view.

Driving through the park. Fall colors were out in full bloom. It reminded me of northern MN-besides the crazy mountains every where. Down south AK where we live the only fall colors we see are yellow and green. Up north the is the reds and oranges that I love in MN. Um..yes we are talking fall already here! Yikes...the summer goes way to fast and it's even shorter in Alaska. In Alaska every one watches the mountains for the weather predictions. This time of year you start talking about termination dust. Meaning watching the tips of the mountains for snow fall. Once you notice it on the top on the mountain you can watch it slowly-or not-make it way down the mountain until it's all over the ground. :( The weather has been starting to get cooler. It's been around 50-60's and rainy with lot's of fog.
The sunset over the mountain. A view from our hotel.
Mt McKinley-or Denali is another name for it. It's the highest point in north America at 20,320 feet. This one always has snow on it! You can only drive 12 miles into the park in your own car. If you take one of the tours you can go further in the park-all the way to wonder lake. We didn't do any of the tours-the shortest one was 8 hours on a bus. I didn't want to push that with the baby. It was still a really cool drive.
Some of the wild life we saw. Brian was super bummed that we didn't see any bears but we saw probably 8 moose and we saw one fox. I have seen 3 bears now in Eagle River driving to work. I even got to see a momma with two cubs (black bears). Kinda crazy because it was only about 2 miles from our house!
Me and my boys on a hike in Denali. The weekend turned out great. No rain and the weather was a balmy 60 degrees!
Axel and Brian at Savage River.
Savage River-the end of the 12 miles that regular cars can drive to. You can see the buses driving past the mark and making their way further into the park. Next year I'd like to try one of the bus tours. I heard they are really amazing and you get to see a ton of wildlife.
Abel and dad snuggling on a trail. Abel loves sucking on his hands. He won't take a Nuk at all but he loves his fingers.
Axel hiking at Mt Vista trail head. He loves being the leader. Brian was looking for bears and Axel was looking for dino's. Luckily we didn't find either while we were hiking.
Me and my boys at the south view stop area. (view of McKinley)
It was a great weekend. A little tricky with a baby in the hotel room, but he did great and so did Axel. Axel is having a great time with pre-school. He loves to be social and to learn new things. Abel is growing so much and even giggled this week! Brian got to hear the first one on Monday and finally today I got to hear one!! It was so cute.