Alaska the third

Soooo, where was I?
The next day we drove up to Denali. It was warm, sunny, and clear. We were told several times that we were lucky that we had a day like that. We could see Denali clearly without its usual shroud of clouds. We passed a lot of ice cream and espresso stands on the way up. There was many espresso huts like the pacific northwest, but they were always running out of coffee for some reason. We would think we were getting really close, but then we would have 130 miles to go! It is so huge it is hard to get perspective how big it is. I suppose it must be immense if you can see the mountain from Anchorage. We stopped at Talkeetna which is on a spur off of the main highway (it is hard to get lost in Alaska since there are not many roads, and they are in nice shape!). Talkeetna is a town where all of the climbers gather before heading off to climb Denali. Less than half of the people attempting the mountain this year successfully climbed it (which is typical). The bumper sticker for the town said, "Talkeetna: A drinking town with a climbing problem." We had a really good lunch there, and the waitress kept calling K "George". I was called sir the night before at dinner, and I was suddenly "dude". We stuck to K's moniker, George. What to call A+Mike? We gawked so much at the mountain on the way up, we arrived later than we expected. We hung out at our lodge and watched the full moon over the mountains. We were expecting a Northern lights show, but the moon was too bright, our eyes were too tired, and our alarms were set too early. Denali was waiting.