Sat, June 14

Once again Ila, Phyllis & Linda are doing this as a joint effort. We got up early this day because we had a two-hour drive back to Denali to catch a 10 am tour into the park. Because we had no heat in the room, it was a little chilly. Cheap is as cheap does! As we drove back up to Denali, it seemed the mountains has just disappeared overnight. The clouds had settled in and simply covered them up. We arrived in plenty of time. The tour began around 10:15. We had a nice bus driver name Sam. He told us he was not going to talk all the time (for which I ((Ila)) said, "Thank Heavens.") But he did tell us he would answer all our questions because he had a lot information to tell us. And he did. Before we were hardly out of the parking lot, we saw a young moose. The tour took us up to the newly opened Eielsen Visitor Center, which was about 66 miles. Along the way up, we saw two sow grizzlies with two cubs each in different locations and quite far away. They were actually too far away to get pictures. We also saw some caribou and some dall sheep far away. When we got to the top, there was Mt McKinley, robed in a cloud. They stated it was only partially out. She had been "out" about 15 minutes during the morning according to the ranger. We ate our lunch there while sitting looking at the mountains all around us. A man who was on the tour with us said last year at this time, there was no snow on the mountains and this year there is quite a lot. Going down we saw a grizzly up close. We had a long time to view him. He was just moseying along, eating leaves and pretty much ignoring us. For those of you who might wonder, rules did NOT let us get off the bus OR put any body parts outside the windows. We saw several dall sheep much closer. We have a fairly decent picture of these too and will share when we can get our computer to work again. (We don't think we have a computer problem. It is just that everywhere we hook into a wireless system, it seems to be different and simply doesn't always work.) The road to the top was very narrow and very steep. There were many buses going to and fro. Many places the bus had to stop in order for another to pass and on some corners, he actually stopped in order to turn the corner and go on. Those in the outside seats say it appeared the nose of the bus was actually over the edge before he turned the corner. It was a LONG way down -- straight down. The driver said at that point, he was our "best friend."

Motel last night was Denali RV & Motel. They had spaces for all types of campers/RVs and some motel rooms as well. The room was pretty small but we made it work. Was supposed to have internet access but just would not work. We did find a really nice cafe for supper (Rose's Cafe) just down the road in Healy AK. Phyllis & I indulged in rabbit food, then fruit aka double cherry pie and Ila's was protein in the form of chocolate peanut butter pie. Linda was "good" and had a hamburger.