"All our hopes now lie with two little hobbits, somewhere in the wilderness." - Gandalf, The Two Towers

Is it just me, or does this center look more moderness than wilderness?

It started out like a normal expedition. Our steed was ready for the long trip, and The Boy was chomping at the bit. As I did my traditional early-weekend morning snooze while The Boy ate Sugar Frosted Chocolate Bombs, I opened my eyes. In my entire field of view was The Boy’s face.

“Are we going to Denali?”

“Mferewrmwrth.”

The Boy took that as a yes, and began packing his motion sensors, monocular, long range microphone, and his pet dog, Scooby.



A road in Denali National Park. Ohhhh, ahhhhh.

About the time The Boy was ready, The Mrs. got up. We had purchased lunches and other sundry food items for the trip, and I asked her if she was ready to go.

The Mrs.: “John, I have to go to work tonight. If we go to Denali, we won’t be home until midnight, and, frankly, I don’t want to work until 2:00 AM teaching wolverines how to dig burrows.”

Me: It won’t take that long.

The Mrs.: Knowing look.

I realized then and there that The Mrs. wasn’t going. That left The Boy and I. We decided to go anyway, and were off on our next expedition: Denali.

Okay, okay, it’s not really and expedition. Every year the folks at the National Park Service set aside one weekend where yokels like The Boy and I can drive our vehicles up and into Denali National Park. I entered this year ($10 fee) and won, so on that one weekend, we could go. It hurt my case that on the previous weekends I’d taken The Mrs. up to the Arctic Circle and down to the subtropics (long story) so she was a bit less than enthusiastic about loading up the entire family into the Wildermobile and scooting halfway across Alaska on a Sunday when she could sit home and watch the NFL.

I understood. But I was going.



Whenever I see a pretty mountain like this, I just can't help but wonder what's in it. Maybe we could dig and find out? Yeah. I like that.

The Boy and I got in the car, and off we went. We made great time, and finally reached the Denali National Park entrance. Signs were helpfully posted to take us to the “Wilderness Access Center.” Now, when you’re surrounded by wilderness, it is surely the sign of government that they’ve gotta put up a big building to tell you when and how you can get there, but, it is government. In addition to the $10 lottery fee, I had to shell out $45 in other fees (hurting the bears’ feelings fee, driving an SUV fee, adding CO2 to the atmosphere fee) to gain a permit to access the park. The Boy and I paid (actually, I paid, he’s a bit of a deadbeat at this stage) and into the park we went . . . what would we see there?



Next: Lions and Tigers and Bears . . . oh my!