Since there was another Adventure caravan leaving the campground today, we heard they were having their drivers meeting this morning, so we thought to avoid congestion, we would leave during that time. However, they thought for some reason, we were trying to one up them and they left really early. People are so funny!
The Parks Highway to Anchorage had several areas where we could see Mt. McKinley, but the sky was still too overcast. We have one last chance in Anchorage. Here’s hoping. We decided to unhook the car and take a side spur road to the little town of Talkeetna. The tv series Northern Exposure was modeled after this little town. There is only one main street and with the exception of 3 or 4 buildings, the rest are fairly new and filled with really unique souvenirs and bush pilots offering trips to Denali. Talkeetna is also where the Mt. McKinley climbers are flown up to the base camps. We had a neat lunch in an original building called West Rib. There were 4 climbers from Talkeetna who climbed the West Rib of McKinley and were personal friends of the owner. The inside dining area was really small with a pool table and several small dining tables. The walls were covered with old pictures of Talkeetna and the 4 climbers pictures on McKinley. Very quaint and we could just imagine it being the center of the town social life during the winter with the pool table and saloon. Very neat little town that only has 845 year round residents and had that many tourists in town. They have to make it while they can during their short summers.
After spending 3 hrs. in a 2 block, one street town, we headed on down to Anchorage. Not too much to see on the way, except for salmon fishermen in Willow Creek and the town of Wasilla. Wasilla is about 11/2 miles long with most of the establishments being on the east side of the road. Unlike other small towns along the way, it is pretty developed with a lot of major name brand stores. And-no darn it-we didn’t see the Palins again.
About 35-40 miles down the road is Anchorage. We actually had very heavy traffic and 4- 6 lanes of road. Pretty nerve-wracking since we hadn’t faced that since Calgary. Arriving at our campground, we were excited to see the Gold Prospector’s Association of Alaska was holding a rally there, so after our group’s daily social hour, we all went over for free hot dogs, hamburgers and musical entertainment. We were too late to do any gold panning, but they were going to be there Sunday as well.
Nice evening.
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