Chena Hotsprings – if at first you don’t succeed…

We started driving to Chena Hot Spring from Denali National Park in the early afternoon and had plans to stop somewhere on the road. Instead, we ended up pushing to get to Chena. We rolled in around midnight which in itself was disorienting. After wandering around in the dark looking for someone official, we stumbled into a large building that looked like it had some activity. Had we inadvertently driven through the center of the earth? The hall was full of Japanese staff and Japanese tourists hoping to catch a glimpse of the northern lights. One of the draws of Chena was it’s good location to view the lights. In any case, we found some resort staff and got the camping details sorted out.

The next day things were much clearer. The sun was shining and we had a nice camping spot. There was a large igloo (another draw of the resort) nearby, but it only added to the coolness factor of the camp spot. I’m told the first version of the igloo that included an ice ceiling collapsed. The new, improved and still standing model was closer to a large shed with ice walls.

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In the next few days, we partook in the hot springs, took a tour of the grounds including a green house and geothermal plant, and treated ourselves to some delicious appletinis. I also forced George into the restaurant. There was no way I was leaving Chena without a salad made with organic green house veggies. Delicious. Yes carnivores, I think veggies are DELICIOUS.

 

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