Leaving Denali

Well, I found my CD and backed it up on my T-drive. I didn't even have to tear that much of the house apart.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, animals...

Anyway, here's some more caribou.

Of course, every time I was ready to take a pic, this little family would turn tail (literally) and bolt.

Ok, everyone get together and sit in a circle... 

ready?

Duck...

Duck...

MOOSE! (Embrace the geek.)

I hope you can find the bears in that picture.

Those tiny white specks...those are big horn sheep. Enlarge the picture and you can see slightly larger tiny white specks.

Same Eagle? You betcha!

He really is pretty majestic.

I don't really remember what these are...but they were small and cute and probably only minutes away from being picked off by the eagle...

 I have foxes in my own neighborhood...but I was still happy to see him.

Now, this is the first time I'd ever used a camera like Dawn's ...it's huge, comes in a pelican case with a variety of lenses, weighs...I'd say roughly eight, nine...hundred pounds. I was really grateful she lent it to me though, because I'd left the main battery for my own camera back at camp...in the charger...

...because I'm an idiot.

(I discovered this after setting off on the bus tour part of the trip. I had a small point-and-shoot cam as well, but it died almost immediately. "Well, just use some of those spare batteries you surely packed on this possibly once in a lifetime adventure," you might say. I'd say, "spare batteries?" So yes, I had three cameras and no extra batteries.)

I am a college graduate.

I did find a couple of old, nearly dead lithiums in my backpack...I'd used them previously and just hadn't disposed of them. Through what I'm guessing was the battery equivalent of the Hanukkah miracle, they lasted for over eight hours. That's right...they just kept going, and going, and going. (I think God took mercy on me.) Because of that, I have pictures from the first part of the trip up to the mountain...and thanks to Dawn, pics of everything after. ( I didn't want to risk running her battery down before McKinley...because, well...we've already covered that spare battery bit...)

Anyway, eventually it was time to leave Denali and head towards Chena.

Which involved, of course...wildfires. Now, thankfully we really weren't that involved with them. We mostly just saw the towering plumes as we drove down the highway...but man, Alaska was burning.  Over a million acres burned in July. The largest fire was near Nenana...guess where we drove to...

Yep.

See you at the Ice Hotel!