Denali Highway Road Trip, 2022, The Second Day

 The Second Day

 

 I'd like to say that Leilani woke us up at O-Dark-Thirty to get us on the road, but that wouldn't be correct because there is no dark-thirty at any time of day in mid-June in Southcentral Alaska.   In fact, just a few days from the Summer Solstice, there is no dark, dark-thirty or any other kind.

 Nonetheless,  she got us up at what is usually a couple hours after my bedtime, and had us on the road 5:30 or thereabouts.   First stop:   gas station a couple miles up the road in Palmer.

Then we were on the way, with Leilani and her friend Carrie in one car and me following along in my pickup.   They were going to Valdez after the Denali highway and I was going home, thus the two vehicles.

The photo above is interesting as it shows markers for the snowplow guys and travelers so they know where the highway is when they're out in a storm.  Trust me, they need them. 

 

Wrangell mountains in the distance.

 

 Next stop is Glennallen ( about 140 miles)  to top off the gas tanks.  The station is called The Hub of Alaska, or just The Hub, and it's been there for many years.  It used to have a cafe and sundries, now it's sundries, restrooms, a gift shop with Alaskana,  and snacks.

Roadside wildflowers.   I don't know what they are and this part of the highway is the only place I've seen them.

Busy place.

Again we headed north, this time on the Richardson highway.   The Richardson is the neglected stepchild of Alaskan highways, a narrow, winding, two-lane road with no passing lanes, narrow shoulders, and a lot of frost heaves.    Several decades ago, I recall "driving" the Richardson and the frost heaves were so bad that your front and rear bumpers hit the frost heaves at the same time.

Slowly but surely, as the saying goes, efforts are being made to upgrade the road and we were soon going to find two construction projects ahead.   One is a 12-mile and the other is an 8-mile, both with 24 hour flagmen and pilot cars for your driving entertainment.

Before we got to those points, however, we turned off the highway onto a gravel road  that made a couple turns and led us to a small, picturesque lake.

Dingo, Dango!   Whataya know!!!   Two horned grebe now inhabited the lake.   We'd never seen them here before.   What a find!

 

The grebes can raise and lower those yellow head feathers at will, thus the "horns."

 

Their eyes remind me of ripe highbush cranberries.

  And in the same lake, a blue-winged teal, another rare bird for us.

 

 

After leaving the lake, we soon found the construction projects and  waited our turns for the pilot cars.   The construction is pretty interesting as, in the first project, they have quarried a massive amount of rock from a cut in the alignment.   They are still drillinig and blasting for  more material.

 

Note the big yellow excavator loading the huge rock trucks.

 

 The construction areas wore me out.   That and just a couple hours sleep the previous two night.   I was really happy when we finally reached Paxson, about a hundred miles from Glennallen, and made the left turn onto the Denali highway.

 

 

 The first 22 miles of the Denali highway is paved.   After that, it is chip sealed.   Not exactly pavement, but a hard, dust-free surface that is a joy to drive considering the previous times I've been over it when rain made the gravel a pot-holed and wash-boarded surface.

 

We did a lot of birding on the way to Maclaren River Lodge, about Mile 40, but for this episode I am taking you straight to the lodge where we will stay two nights. 

Maclaren River Lodge.

 

I was in the second room from the right in these duplex cabins.

The lake in front of the cabins.

My upstairs neighbor is building a nest out of little balls of med it forms and carries.   There are little balls of mud all over the deck and the two chairs that are on the deck.

I always called them mud swallows, but their name is cliff swallow.

The swallows are relentless in their nest-building.   I lay in bed that night and watched their shadows on the curtains until I fell asleep.

 

 

Next up:   Birding the Denali highway.