After a quick night’s sleep at Nancy State Park, (Hi Mom!,
Love Lauren) the road carried us north to Denali, debatably America’s greatest
National Park. The day was a bit grey,
so we listened to the Have a Nice Day playlist courtesy of Spotify, which really set the mood.
Margerie’s first day off occurred in Denali, where Lauren
and Cindy betrayed her for a NPS shuttle (aka green schoolbus), with windows
that dropped open at every bump. This
was a 66 mile, 8 hour roundtrip bus ride deep into the heart of Denali.
Wildlife observed on the bus (other than an
unruly Australian family):
- Dall Sheep—not to be confused with a Mountain Goat; tiny white dots on hills; look more like lambs through binocs
- Moose—male, solitary; lazily laying down and munching on leaves
- Caribou—one unfortunately was killed by wolves with it’s carcass left for our next sighting
- Grizzly Bear—seen sleeping on top of caribou carcass early in the day and standing eating on carcass on trip back; many other bears seen throughout the park
- Arctic Squirrel—routinely licking the salt on the road (salt used for dust reduction) in front of us causing the bus driver to brake for squirrels every 5 min or so
- Marmot—Lauren claims to have seen on side of road
- Road Grader—not actually wildlife, but thought the Nebraska contingency would like to know that they slow down traffic in National Park gravel roads too
- Assorted birds including eagles, although much debate on Golden vs Bald Eagles. (We think a few people could use new binoculars for Xmas next year.)
A few pics from the day:
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| Moose |
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| Caribou |
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| Sheep vs Goat Infographic (FYI--Alaska has the best infographics!) |
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| Grader |
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