Got up at 5:45 this morning to get ready for the tour and get to the Wilderness Center to catch the bus. Eleven hour trip with no food or water so we had to fix lunch and drinks to go. The ride on the school bus was better than I thought, for the first 6 hours. Hardly even thought about it the scenery was so beautiful. But, rather, I mean Butt, it turned out to be a long day, actually the longest day of the year. We really had a great time though. The roads are gravel one-lane roads built on the side of the mountain (not all are that way) and when we met another bus one of the drivers had to pull over to let the other by. We were very lucky to see all the wildlife we did. We saw 11 bears all together, first a Mamma bear and 2 1-year old cubs that were romping and playing with each other. They kept getting closer and closer to the bus and ended up only about 50 – 100 feet from us. I started taking pictures when they were quite a ways away and as they got closer I took more, then they got closer so I took more, then closer, etc. you get the “picture” don’t you? Anyway, I have lots of pictures of bears. Digital cameras are great aren’t they? I took over 70 pictures on this trip but pared it down to 20 keepers. We later saw another mamma bear with 2 very small cubs that were still nursing, still later another mother bear with 2 cubs and then 2 more. Also saw about 40 Dall sheep at various times but that’s a guess as we weren’t allowed to “count sheep” on the trip. Saw several caribou and some grouse and Sandi wants me to mention her rabbits. I don’t understand it, she shoots them at home with the .410 shotgun but here she thinks they’re cute. The big disappointment was that we did not get to see Mt. McKinley very well. We saw it early in the morning from a long distance but when we got to Wonder Lake it was covered in clouds. Maybe tomorrow at Talkeetna.
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