The End of the Road, part Deux

Recall earlier in the trip we stayed with Phil Johnson at his End of the Road shangri-la in Carmel Valley, CA.

We experienced another end of the road during our all day shuttle bus tour of Denali.

Now Phils end of the road is at the terminus of a 1/4 mile stretch of asphalt and the end of the Denali Park road comes at the end of 92 miles of winding, dusty, washboard, narrow road that climbs steep grades negotiating tight curves - all in a school bus jammed (every seat was taken) with picture clicking, gum snapping and jaw yapping tourists - for 12 hours. Sounds great, doesn't it?

The ladies awaiting a 12 hour tour, a twelve hour tour......

Normally this is not my cup of tea by a damn sight but let me tell you, one of the most incredible rides I've ever been on.

Let me try to capture this for you. This trip had it all - people watching, observations of social interactions between strangers in tight quarters, trying to determine the 18 different languages we heard, seeing what other people eat for lunch, watching folks with $10,000 worth of camera gear trying to figure out all the knobs and functions, seeing 70 year old couples with huge backpacks like they were going to climb Denali wrestle with their gear for an all day bus ride, youngsters showing great frustration in not being able to text/update their social media due to no cell coverage anywhere in the park, listening to the 50's something man explain to his 30's something wife why it was imperative for him to bring his bear spray on a bus trip (clipped to his belt in a holster like fashion no less) - I was loving it. Debbie, errr, not so much. My sister Sue was somewhere in the middle. Whoo boy, as I say, you can't make this stuff up.


The bus and driver Barr..

Now to the tasty bits....heart stopping wildlife sightings - we watched a grizzly working a caribou carcass, he was there on our way in and 8 hours later on our way out still ripping and clawing at that kill; saw majestic views of Denali - bus driver/knowledgable guide Barr said it was the best view she had seen of Denali in a long while; witnessed dramatic landscapes - the colors, oh man, the colors of this place!
















Stopped at the informative Eilson Center and snapped a couple of nice shots of Denali in all her great one glory....


Finally made it to the end of the road.....

Returned to our campsite and it was really nice to get off of the bus. We were the only ones getting off at Tek campground and it was a good feeling to not have to endure another long 90 minutes to return to the park entrance like all of the others.

But, all things considered we enjoyed the day immensely and got to see just about all of the park that you can get to without hiking/biking.

We did do a fair amount of hiking/biking....more on that in the next post.
This may be the end of the Denali road but it certainly is not the end of the road, we have much more to experience and share with you all.


As I said to my sister Sue, hey you've got 10 more days of this! She is over the moon with the trip so far and so are we.
Adieux mes amis.....