On day two in Alaska we had an awesome day in Denali Park. We went on an all day bus tour. The bus was a school bus they had fixed up inside. It had comfy seats and the driver-tour guide, Marsha, had a video camera that was hooked up to monitors all over the bus. Whenever we stopped to view an interesting animal, Marsha would run the camera so everyone could get a good look at the animal.
Caribou were very prevalent. We saw quite a few of them.
Here's a couple photos of grizzly bear. We saw several of them, including three cubs.
I'm making a cup of Sanka from the hot water spigot on the side of the bus. Here's me and Lorrie showing off a moose antlers the Rangers had displayed at one of our stops.
The bus caught on fire (brakes). Some folks on the bus panicked and used handicaped people as human shields to escape off the bus first. While we were standing beside the burning bus we saw a moose antler shed in the woods right besides the road. That was cool. Then we decided to walk to the next wayside rest. Marsha told us it was about a mile and a half. It ended up to be 3 and a half miles. It was a nice hike. It was a little scary walking over the bridge where we had seen two full grown grizzlies and a cub earlier that morning. Some of us were so scared we may have soiled ourselves a little. Or maybe it was from the reindeer sausage we had at lunch.
I liked Bob, our rescue bus driver, but I didn't tell him I was now comando when he picked us up at the wayside rest. He had seen the movie Speed, as it was, in his words, one of their driving training videos. Another highlight of the day was the sighting of a wolvereen. In the 15 years Marsha had been driving the bus she had never seen one before. We also saw a wolf stalking a caribou. The dumb caribou had no idea. It actually started heading towards the wolf.
We stayed at the McKinley Princess Lodge that night.
