So this past weekend, Andy and I did our yearly (except for last year, thanks bar exam) trip to Denali National park on the “Camper Bus.” For those of you non-Alaskans, the camper bus is a giant bus that fits like 120 people, yet time-after-time manages to be filled with only those 6 crazies who ride the bus as far into the park as any human is legally allowed to venture (i.e., Wonder Lake Campground), to go camping, battle the mosquitoes and maybe catch a glimpse of Mt. McKinley. Andy and I are some of those crazies.
I think about 99% of what Andy does is super cute, but my favorite is when he sits patiently on a bench at Wonder Lake campground waiting for his mountain, Mt. McKinley, to emerge from the clouds. He battles droves of mosquitoes, while I hide in the tent, to catch a perfect picture of his mountain. He plans to climb it in the next couple years, and his love for it is inspiring. Some day he will get to the top and I’m going to be the proudest wife in the world.
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| He finally snapped a great one from behind the clouds |
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Mt. McKinley may be awesome and magical, but what the camper bus is really about is people-watching the tourists who have managed to trek all the way out here. I can tell you right now, hands-down, the best type of tourist is the one who has literally never seen a wild animal in their entire life. Usually they’re from some European city, and they came to Alaska because they simply cannot fathom that a place like this even exists.
The buses in Denali attract tourists because the bus drivers will point out to the tourists on the bus when they see an animal, stop the bus, and let everyone take pictures. The bus will stop at literally every single animal siting. Every single bear, every single moose, every single bird, every single caribou, every single squirrel. Don’t get me wrong, I love being able to see these beautiful animals, but I’m pretty sure if the bus drivers could see caterpillars from the drivers seat, they would stop for those too. Needless to say, by the time Bear #27 rolls around, most people, particularly the Alaskans on the bus are like, “We gettttt ittttt.” At one point, we were stopped behind two buses that had parked to see an owl. An owl. Geriatric tourists from Minnesota were clambering over each other to stick their cannon multi-lense camera underneath some other tourist’s armpit and out the bus window to get a photo of an owl. Andy and I went back to napping.
So here we are on this camper bus, and I’m trying to catch some shut eye on Andy’s shoulder (I can’t ever just sit alone in my own space, I have to constantly be all up in Andy’s grill. He calls it “climbing on him,” I call it “bonding”). We soon discover we are sitting in front of two German tourists. We quickly learn that these guys have literally never seen an animal before in their entire lives. It was like being with a child during his first trip to the zoo. The bus driver stops and in a hushed and apprehensive voice indicates that there “might” be something up there on the ridge. German Man#1 springs from his seat in such a fit of excitement he literally falls over Andy’s face, knocking off his sunglasses. If you don’t think someone can fall over someone else’s face, trust me they can. After bowling over Andy, he runs, yes runs down the aisle of the bus to the front of the bus, yanks down the window, and sticks his entire upper body out the window.
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| This is the window. It’s not very big. And like half this dude’s body was out of it. That’s a dead mosquito in the middle there, b-t-dubs. Victory. |
To his credit, he did indeed find an animal on top of this ridge and proceeded to jerk his surprisingly not-stuck body back through the window and into the bus and announced to everyone what it was. “I SEE IT! I SEE IT! OH MY GOD I SEE IT! IT’S A BEAR!! IT’S A BEAR! IT’S A GRIZZLY!!!!!!” Aaaaaaaaaaand back out the window he goes, furiously snapping pictures, while the poor bus driver is imploring him to stop yelling. If that bear was within hearing range, it probably would have climbed into the bus itself to give this guy a piece of his bear mind. This is what we saw:
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| That’s right. A bear butt. Like a mile away. A magnificent and amazing creature, but his butt nonetheless. |
He then starts to adamantly demand what this bear is doing. Like the bus driver knows the bear’s schedule.
Shortly after the bear incident, I found myself once again napping on Andy’s shoulder, when suddenly I hear, “ES IST EIN VOGEL!!!!” Everyone else on the bus is looking at each other like what is a vogel? when we realize he’s looking at a bird perched on top of a tree. No one gets up. Later, a herd of caribou decided to grace us with their presence. His face was priceless when he saw those caribou.
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| Okay, the dude’s got a point. Pretty awesome, huh? |
This happened numerous additional times, with more caribou, more bears, some meese, and what I eventually dubbed “ghost animals,” i.e., animals this guy thought he saw. I swear, this guy was more entertaining than the animals. Despite his bizarre and slightly annoying unbridled excitement, my heart goes out to him and all the other tourists that come to Alaska. I fell in love with Alaska two years ago, and it brings me so much joy to watch others fall in love with her too.
If you want to see Denali Park in its greatest glory, and maybe run into your own set of fun-loving tourists, check out the camper bus.