We were up early for our bus tour through the park. After a quick breakfast in the café of yogurt parfait we boarded the bus a little after 7:00am. I think we pulled out around 7:25. Peter was our driver, informant, historian and comedian all rolled into one. After eight hours on a bus together we got to know him a little bit. He made the trip even more enjoyable and interesting.

My only negative about this type of tour is that I can’t stop and get out to shoot what I want when I want. There were so many views I was dying to get. Some of them I ended up shooting out of the window of the moving bus. It was better than nothing. Peter said several times, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.” The further we got into the park, the more we began to understand what he meant. I’m not sure what we expected from this park, but it wasn’t what we saw. Neither one of us were prepared to be blown away. Yosemite blew us away three years ago. We really didn’t expect Denali to rival, or possibly surpass, our love of Yosemite. I really want to come back at some point and go even further into the park – which you can only do on a bus tour. Private cars are not allowed inside the park past the 15-mile mark. Our 8 hour trip took us about 60 miles in. The deeper we got, the more beautiful the landscape was. I swear it looked like God had picked up a paintbrush and created this beautiful canvas just for us. It was so beautiful it didn’t look real. FRO! (That’s Cari speak for “For Real!”)

We saw all kinds of animals. Several Grizzly bears, some Dall sheep (close up too!), a fox, a wolf, state bird, a moose (from far away!) and some saw a caribou. In Peter’s words, we got the Denali Grand Slam especially since The Mountain appeared for us too.

When we weren’t being amazed at some kind of animal or a scene dotted with fall colors that took your breath away, Peter was entertaining us with all kinds of personal stories and historical facts. He shared the story of when George Clooney rode his bus and gave him a $100 tip – said he was a really nice guy. Someone asked him to talk about the movie “Into the Wild” which is a true story that happened right here in the park. He’s personally been to the infamous bus several times. Sean Penn directed that movie and he came to town on research, just dropping by one of the local bars to talk to residents about how they felt about the entire situation. Peter was one of them. He was really looking forward to seeing his name in the credits and was so disappointed when all it said was, “Thank you to the folks of Healy.”

I was starving by the time we got back to the hotel so we went to the little café beside the King Salmon restaurant and got their Seafood Nachos – half order. We barely finished them. You know, it’s very rare that we get nachos anywhere and need to ask for extra chips because there is so much good stuff piled on top! They were piled with shrimp, white fish, crab, tomatoes, black olives, cheese, guacamole and sour cream need I say more? They were awesome!

An Australian couple sat at the table next to us and we struck up a conversation with them. They were just delightful and such fun to talk to. They are leaving at the end of the week on a 7-day Hawaii cruise. They did the inside passage cruise and said the weather was horrible. I sure hope the weather cooperates better for our cruise! We exchanged email addresses so I can send them the pics I took on the bus today. There were a couple they didn’t get and there were a couple of times it was mentioned that I had the really nice camera … so, I don’t mind sharing with them. I wish they were going to be on our ship. They would be loads of fun to do things with.

I came back and immediately started transferring photos to my computer. Bob and I both were dying to look at them. Even in RAW format they were amazing! Just a wee bit of processing and they are incredible. It really is hard to look at them and not think they’re fake. The beauty inside this park looks like a backdrop, not real scenery. The hard part will be trying to pick just a few to enlarge and frame. And it’s only been two days. Tomorrow we take a bus back to Anchorage, rent a car and drive to Homer. The scenery along that way is going to be just a beautiful but in a completely different way. I’m excited!!

Gotta go to bed. We’re on the list at the front desk for a phone call if the Northern Lights come out tonight. I’m ready! Got my jeans on the bed, shoes and socks by the nightstand and camera ready to go! How cool would that be? To actually SEE them??? Bed time – lights out.

12:30am – phone call. “The lights are out.” Bob didn’t even hear the phone ring he told me later. We threw clothes on, grabbed the camera and went out the door. Yup, the sky was filled with this eerie green light. I knew I needed a tripod. I even had my camera already mounted on it. BUT I only brought my little baby tripod and it’s not something I’m with it enough to actually use in a productive manner in an Ambien Induced State (AIS). I shot a few frames. I knew they were all going to be blurry. They were. It’s ok, they’re proof enough that we saw them. If we hadn’t been so sleep deprived we probably would’ve stayed out there longer and been more inclined to wait for more activity – maybe next time.