Day of Grizzes

too lazy to format this...notepad jacked it all up. oh well...here it is...

Didn't take long for the first griz to occur. I tried to take a shower, but couldn't figure the blasted thing out. water was coming out of the main faucet, but couldn't figure out how to force it to shower. turns out it was some goofy pull down ring on the faucet. gay setup!

THIS IS THE FAUCET THAT PISSED ME OFF! =)

breakfast was kinda griz. it was a continental breakfast. the had a single waffle maker sitting on the counter for everyone to use. there was quite the wait. instead of waiting i had a 'bowl' of cereal out of a tiny 8 oz styrofoam cup. pretty tough to NOT spill.
next griz. dad was eating breakfast, i went to room to pack. ran up stairs, went to room, couldn't get dang key card to work. tried tried tried...nothing. asked the cleaning lady to help me...she asked if it was right room, i was pretty sure. she opens it with her master card and some dude i don't know is looking back. oops...sorry dude, wrong room. i should have been on the 3rd floor, not the 2nd. hee haw!
got driving, took a scenic route over hatcher pass. stopped and did a day hike. was supposed to be 3.5 miles one way to some lakes. long story short, we took a wrong fork and went the wrong way on the trail. hee haw again. pissed me off cause it would have been a cool hike. it was still a cool view where we ended up. it was super steep and i got a picture of my dad grasping a cable to get up a steep spot. we just ate our lunch and headed back rather than going all the way back and going on the correct route.
next we went to some mine...independence i think. was kinda cool. there were TONS of people picking blueberries in the fields. not just around the mine area, but all along the road today. crazy. i picked some, tasted 'em...they were dang tart. blah! what are these people thinking? go to the store and save your back! =)
on a positive note, the weather was great today. it was partly cloudy on our hike with pretty cool temps. the clouds looked pretty cool.
we continued along over hatcher pass, saw some mixed and cool scenery and finally got back to the main highway that heads to denali. came to a way cool view point of mt. denali! was way cool. the range was more jagged than i had imagined....i guess that's what the glaciers do. stopped at another viewpoint a ways up the road but the summit was clouded over. i think we got a glimse of the lower summit, tho. the scenery changed from somewhat mountainous and green to straight up tundra. the evergreens got small and skinny then all but disappeared. saw a wicked cool double rainbow...about the coolest i've seen.
we checked into kinda a weird hostel. we have a private cabin. is way small, has an upstairs where beds are. super steep stairs where you can kill yourself if not careful. we have to go to a shared bathhouse outside. kinda griz, but it's better than the bunkhouse next door where you gotta share with 15 other peeps. their anal about their internet here...i had to give them my MAC address and then they gave me a key that is about 25 chars long. geesh!
we had some good burgers for dinner. showered up since we got to get up way early to catch the bus tour that goes into denali ntl park (no cars allowed on this road that goes into the park). that's about all i can think of. too long as it is.