DENALI CARIBOU

2014, a childhood dream becomes a reality.  I heard of a trip that would match me with a roommate, so over the next year I made payments to bring my dream to fruition.  Spring of 2014 I boarded a plane for Vancouver., Canada, barely sleeping the night before, to start my experience.  Spending a day and a half in Canada finally it was time to go to the port.  The loading of luggage seemed to take forever. At last it was time to board the ship and meet my roommate. .Seeing the narrow gangway I had to calm my heart so as not to fall into the water.  Next  was the lifeboat drill, then there was a loud blast of the horn and off we went sailing further north, on to Alaska.

In elementary school back in the late 1950’s, I had decided someday I would travel to Alaska, not knowing when or how.  The trip was greater than my wildest expectations. We were on a smaller ship so we were able to sail into the smaller coves with the opportunity to see the glaciers up close and personal.  When the cruise had ended I knew my experience wasn’t over.  Along with a handful of the people in our group I traveled to Denali, Alaska.  The following day we boarded a bus to travel down the one lane winding road, then into the park.  Almost immediately we started seeing animals, then in the distance we viewed this beautiful caribou.  To be honest I didn’t know if I had captured him until I returned home and started looking at the hundreds of photographs on my computer.  Suddenly there he was among the trees, there was no doubt this was my favorite photograph from my Alaskan encounter.