Denali

Ok, so the mountain has been elusive..  Hopefully we will see it in the next couple of days.  On our way here, we saw our first moose ! !  However, because our windshield wipers quit working and it was pouring rain most of our drive, we almost hit the moose and certainly couldn't get a picture. LOL  All I could see was a dark animal running in front of us through the rain drops on the window ! ! ! Oh well.  No harm done.  We went to the Cabin Night Dinner Theater a couple hours after we arrived in Denali.  It was as great as we remembered it was. One of our guests, Vern, was chosen to be part of the play. He was so good, really played the part well. Dinner was all you could eat, served family style, ribs, salmon and more. Very good.

Did our Denali Park Bus Tour today.  Was excellent. After the horrible driver we had last year, I was worried.  Cassie was terrific and very knowledgeble. She said that we were very lucky as we saw the "Big 5" mammels. We saw moose, caribou, several grizzlies, Dall Sheep and wolves. Amazing.  Quite a few birds including an owl and beautiful wildflowers.

Our last day here and we rafted the Nanana River. So different than any other rafting trips we have done.  For one, the one they call the Scenic Float has plenty of whitewater too, not what I would call a float.  LOL  Also, this was the first time we have had to put on a full body dry suit. Was great except that the rubber around the neck was choking, it was sooooo tight and didn't stretch with body warmth either. I think I had a leak in my footie as I ended up wet to my waist inside the dry suit. LOL We also wore helmets and life jackets. This river was very interesting as it had a lot of rock flour and then merged with another river that had even more, therefore, no fish and no animals coming down for water. No wildlife at all.  We had not put one and one together to realize that animals cannot and will not exist with rock flour water. One of the guides said that if you got a drinking glass of water out of the river and let it sit overnight, you would have 1/3 filled with rock flour silt by morning. No wonder no fish or animals, they cannot breathe as well as the temperature was about 34 degrees, all from those melting glaciers.  Sad.. Again, these guides talked about the melting of all the glaciers and that it is expected that they will all be gone within 50 years. That is not the same as new snow and ice, it has to do with the ancient ice called glaciers.