Denali Back to Wasilla, AK (Previous updated also)

(Note to self; when you get up at 4:30 AM to get someplace to catch a bus for a 12 hour day of sightseeing and walking, go to bed early! Before and after.) We were up till near midnight the evening before Denali, as it is hard to go to sleep with the sun still up, then after the long day, David stayed up till 11 PM and I to 12:30 AM working on the blog. We had no reason to set an alarm this morning and we both woke up and looked at the time at exactly the same time, 10 AM. (Neither of us has done anything like that up to now.) Check out time was 11 AM. We scrambled around and in a disorderly manner got out of the cabin at 10:50. Then we took a shower and got ready for the day in the campground showers.
We drove back toward Anchorage, but got tired around 5 PM and stopped in Wasilla. (Home of Sara Palen.) When we got in the area prior to Anchorage, I went out of the way to go through Wasilla just to see if you can see Russia from here. (You can't, but they have T-shirts saying you can, however they say from Alaska, not from Wasilla, or Sara's front porch.) Then I later learned that we had to go through Wasilla on the way to Denali, and we are back here to spend the night tonight.
I stopped at a small cafe in a gas station along the road south from Denali, which David didn't think was a very good idea, but I told him we needed to sample some local ambiance. We had breakfast at 2 PM which they were happy to fix and it was quite good and the burgers we saw others with looked real tasty too. When I asked "Mom", the owner if they closed or moved south in the winter, she said no, that they were open year 'round. She said that most other places closed so she got a lot of business from winter tourists and locals from miles around with no place else to get away to. I suppose that when it is dark almost all day, one wants to go out and eat once in a while. I can't even image how it would be, dark all the time, however it isn't really fun with it light all the time either. One place told us that kids would be out all "night" but had to be quiet so others could sleep. The folks that stay in central Alaska say that the roads are maintained passable in the winter. To them that means with chains, or snow mobile. In places there are poles about 15 ft. high and 50 feet apart that are like a tall 7. The horizontal end is at the edge of the road with reflectors on it. I ask a local what they were for, as I could not see a reason for them. He said that there were areas where the snow drifts constantly, even when not snowing, to six feet or more. The reflectors tell the road crews where the road is, to clean it and others where the road is to travel. The reflectors are because it is always dark in the winter. I saw pickups and SUVs with light bars on the bumpers and across the top and they said that it takes that to see the reflector poles, and the "road" when all is white.
It seems that most of the "summer" businesses here use workers from the lower 48 states. We met a young lady right out of high school from Utah who couldn't afford to go to college yet, so she came to Alaska because she had always wanted to. She took a job in the very first town that she came to out of Canada, (Tok). Tok is flourishing because it is the first town out of Canada which is a day's drive, and because it is a days drive from the next place on the return trip. With the roads so poor and the damage to windshields and RVs, the town is full of motels, campgrounds, RV repair shops, and windshield repair and replacement shops. We met a lady from San Diego that is a school teacher there in the winter, but has worked for a store in Alaska for 8 years in the summers. Meeting folks here is fascinating and we don't have to start the conversation. As soon as we open our mouths for any reason, we are asked where we are from. I told one young lady to guess, and she had no idea. I told her to think about any place as she couldn't hurt our feelings right or wrong. She said Tennessee. That was all she could think of in the south she said. Other Southerners we have met, say I don't have a southern accent, so I suppose it is all in relation to where one is from themselves.
We have no plans for tomorrow, so will decide that when we wake up. When we make plans we change them, and we left Tennessee with the idea that without plans we would do what we wanted as we wanted. That has slowed us down some, and we are getting a bit homesick, but we started this journey to see Alaska first, and there have been many detours which have broadened our horizons, and shown us new places and opportunities for the future if ever needed. This has been an educational, emotional, fun experience, with some downturns thrown in for a wake up call. I am older, but wiser for the trip. David has had his eyes opened as to the adventure that one can have for a lifetime if one plans his life and career for such travel.