Alaskabike Day 2-Much Drier! :)

What a difference a day makes!  Today we were met with much better weather than the day before.  Don't get me wrong it was still cloudy but NO RAIN!  It made our 16 mile ride much more bearable than the soakfest we experienced yesterday.  After a delicious breakfast at the Perch Restaurant, we tackled the Denali Highway. It is a mostly gravel highway which is little used.  Only 24 of of its 135 miles are paved.  And we got to ride 16 of those unpaved miles.  Luckily, we are using hybrid Cannondale bikes that can handle  just such a road.  Being poorly maintained, it has a tremendous amount of potholes (for all of you TNT cyclists out there, think Penny Road before they resurfaced it).  But we made it to our lunch stop with no problems.  

Here's a photo of the of the group:

On the left side from to back, say hello to Adrian, David, Karen and Laura, while on the right side front to back, we have Mike (Adrian's father), Walt (Alaskabike tour director), Greg (Walt's son and assistant  tour director) and your humble blogger.

After lunch, we had a one hour van ride to our next activity, a five mile hike in Denali National Park.  I can't remember the last time I went on an actual hike.  It took about two hours to complete the hike.  But it was AWESOME!  We saw mountains and glaciers and even got to pick (and eat) wild blueberries right off the ground.  Really cool!

Our hike ended the day's activities.  We settled in at the Tangle River Inn for dinner and a good nights rest.  Tomorrow we ride 20 miles of the paved section of the Denali Highway and get to do a little canoeing!

Me and Laura on the deck of the Perch Restaurant:

 

See you tomorrow! :)