Denali National Park

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This morning we went on a Natural History Tour through Denali National Park. We spotted a female moose with her calf way off in the distance but it was yet another fleeting glimpse. We visited the ranger station at the park and then went on to see an old mining cottage.

Our first real close-up view of wildlife was a porcupine crossing the road in front of our bus. Porcupines, it seems, are quite blind so it was not surprising to see it cross right in front of us. Luckily our driver was alert enough not to run over it as it sauntered across and then into the bushes before disappearing up a tree.....managed to get a photo or 2 this time. We met and Athabascan native named Susan who gave us an informative talk about her history and culture and how she was raised in the area. The scenery was quite majestic so lots of photo opportunities here.

After the tour we lunched at Prospector’s Pizzeria & Alehouse. Tony was hanging out for the King Crab cannelloni and I, rather gamely, ordered a pizza with ground elk, caribou sausage and buffalo mozzarella cheese. We waited and we waited and we waited...until finally my pizza arrived but not Tony’s cannelloni. We asked the waitress to check (which she did) and it turned out she had not ordered it....I can tell you Tony was not very impressed when they offered him caribou meatballs instead – they were for free however as a way of trying to make up for forgetting his order. Anyway, my pizza was huge (as is every serving here in the US) so I shared it with Tony.....it was really tasty but I had to mentally block out what I was actually eating.

In the afternoon, we got back on the McKinley Explorer for the ride to Fairbanks. We had dinner in the dining car on the train before arriving at Fairbanks approx. 8:00pm

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