Day 10

A Moose in the brush

Dahl sheep way up on the mountain

A Mountain View

Moose and Calf

Mountain Flowers

Mountain Flowers

Day 10 was another spectacular day. We took the Denali Park 8 hour bus tour through Denali Park. We drove approximately 125 miles on narrow, winding twisting gravel roads that snaked around the sides of the various mountains in the range. We saw a grizzly bear, moose, caribou, eagles, dahl sheep, show shoe rabbits and even got to witness eagles mating in mid air. The mountains are beyond words, at least any words of mine and the vistas were breathtaking. I fulfilled my earlier promise and got to spend a day with Sarah. She wasn't running for any office but she was one hell of a tour guide. Alaska turned out to be something totally unexpected to me. I always pictured Alaska as a dense jungle/forest type of place but, in fact, Alaska is a desert only a very cold one. Denali only gets 8-12 inches of rain a year and most of that is in the form of snow. As a consequece you don't have the animal density you do in lower Canada or Yellowstone in the states. In Yellowstone you had herds of everything but up here you have solitary animals. In 6.7 million square miles there are only 350 bears and that varies from year to year. In all this territory it is estimated there are only 35 packs of wolves. I took a ton of picutures which I will only send a small sample with this posting. I may have to set up a slide show on the big screen to torture some of my friends with. As an interesting side note most of the buses we rode on were US made with Navistar engines and chassis or Freightliner engines and chassis. They ride hard, are noisy and the engines sound like a steel barrel of rocks rotating. The bus we toured Denali with had a Mercedes chassis, engine and transmission under a Thomas body. The engine was totally silent, the transmission shifts were imperceptable and the only sound was a low whine of the turbocharger. It was almost eery after the big American noise makers that lurched and jerked all over the road while roaring and snapping your necks off. We may be losing the industrial battle but from what I can tell we deserve to lose it. Holland America has a great operation. They have the logistics down to a science. You wind up at every stage of the way right where you are supposed to be on time and with your luggage. Their meals are gourmet restaurant quality and the accomodations are first rate. The staff and people they have such as the guides are professional in every way. If I ever had to form an army in a hurry I would hire the Dutch to handle the logistics. I could ramble on about the logistics for hours but to move that many people to that many places with clockwork precision is awesome to behold. Bear in mind the ship we were on was on one of half a dozen Holland has cruising the coast and it was one of the smaller ones at that. Just fixing meals for 1200 passengers and 600 crew members 3 times a day with the variety of choices they had is amazing. In any event the Grand Tour is over and we have only the frosting on the cake left. Day 11 we ride the Scenic Dome Car train from Denali to Anchorage. The Dome car has the dining room on the first floor and the Bubble Car upstairs. Mary will like that. I'll like it too but Mary really likes riding on trains.