After 8 hours of watching the scenery of Denali National Park fly past out the window of a tour bus, everyone was ready for some food and exercise. When we were told that we were going to the Lynx Creek Pizza Parlor, everyone was ecstatic. We got there and settled into our seats with soda, and then a mass amount of pizza arrived at all the tables. Twenty large pizzas came to all the tables. Everyone was so excited that we were eating out. I think a lot of people’s eyes were way bigger than their stomachs. It was a lot of fun though, everyone laughing and talking, a fantastic AGLP moment for sure.
      After the feeding frenzy, everyone went out to look around at the shops across the street. I decided to go look around the shops with Emily May and Jillian Thompson. While we were in a store I found a $1,000,000 bill (fake, of course) and decided to play a little joke on Caterina Eggelston and Macy Labun. I went up to Macy and showed her the bill and said,
      “ Look Macy, I found a million dollar bill!”
      She looked at it awestruck and said, “I’ve never seen one of those before.” Since she was with a big group of people everyone said that it was fake and we all laughed about it, Macy too. Shortly after that I found Caterina and went up to her. I showed her the bill and said,
      “ Cat, I found a million dollars!”
      “ Is it real?” she asked
      “ Of course it’s real!”
      “ Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed, “Can I have it?”
      I secretly laughed to myself. “No, why would I give you a million dollars?” Then Cat went up to Ishtar, who was a couple feet away, and asked why I got to keep the million dollars. I don’t know what he said because I was just about to crack up laughing, so I walked away. She figured out that I was joking and she laughed about it too.
      The shops were all really interesting to look around in. They were all tourist shops, so everything was way overpriced, but it was fun just to look around. Some stores were huge and others were teeny-tiny. Some had really pretty arts and crafts in them—I saw a shop that had painted moose antlers that were made to look like bald eagles.
      The day was fun and entertaining with lots of jokes and lots of talking. I really hope that another day comes where this group really feels like a big family.

     “Get up………Get up!” boomed Mr. Rosene’s voice. “It’s 5:50AM; half an hour ‘till departure.”
      “Ughh,” groaned our whole tent (and I’m sure most everyone else of camping spaces 12-24). Thirty-five minutes later (oops), we were on the road and off to Denali National Park.
      Once there, each individual got a ticket with their assigned time informing them when they would be leaving for their enjoyable eight hour bus ride through Denali National Park. Some buses would leave as early as 7:00AM and others as late as 8:30AM, all within half an hour of each other.
      During our bus rides, everybody saw at least a couple of grizzly bears. Grizzlies happen to be the exact same species as the brown bear. The bears closer to the coast were a lot larger because they had the advantage of the salmon run, which provided them with protein, whereas the inland bears had a diet of mainly berries and roots. The coastal bears were much larger and therefore named Grizzlies. The smaller bears were named brown bears.
      There were also a good amount of both male (ram) and female (ewe) dall sheep. You would never see the genders mixed at this time of year because they split up after the ewes have their young. At one point, there were at least 60 ewes and lambs on a hillside. All the vans were fortunate enough to see nearly twenty rams chilling very close alongside the road.
      There were also a few other animals that some buses were lucky enough to see including the willow ptarmigan (state bird), caribou, moose, and hares.
      Once all AGLP members had returned from their road trip, we all headed down town Denali for a nice laid back party at Lynx Creek with plenty of pizza. Once all twenty large pizzas had been gulped down, we all explored the many shops in Denali.
      There were many camping stores with dried food and the much-needed kerosene stove for their dinner. There were also many tourist stores with uniquely carved whalebones, T-shirts, and most definitely ice cream!
      Sleepy, with full stomachs and also some very sore buns, we headed off to bed for a well-earned rest.