Northbound—Anchorage/Talkeetna/Denali

The amount of daylight up here is great—I love it. We are in about 20 hours of sunshine. You can see what it looks like here in the campground at 1030 at "night" ("night" is somewhat misleading when used here). Even after the sun goes down, it is not really dark for a while. It looks like you are in a heavy overcast, stormy day. Sandy made blackout curtains for our bedroom windows and they work well. Without them, we would be going to bed in full daylight and being blasted out by the sun at some ungodly early hour. I'm not an "early" person.


Anchorage

From Palmer to Anchorage is a whopping 30-mile drive. We stayed at the Fort Richardson RV Park. This is an Army base and shares a common border with Elmendorf AFB. Both are large and we learned they are transitioning them into a single joint base—for efficiency. Makes sense to me.

Both have an RV park with 30-amp sites but Elmendorf does not have sewer. Fort Rich has mostly 3-way sites (electric, water, and sewer) but some are “shared” sites—a new concept to me! Shared sites are pull-thrus where two rigs face opposite directions. Both hook up to water and electric but the first rig on the site “owns” the sewer. Then, the second rig simply asks the first rig for occasional use of the sewer when they need to empty their tanks. The first rig pays an extra $2.00 per day for the privilege of staying hooked up to the sewer. Interesting concept. It works.

We were told that Elmendorf had a dining facility open to anyone with an ID card and were encouraged to try it. We did. It was a very nice dining area with large windows looking into thick woods. Set up like a food court, there were individual areas (lines) for dinner entrees, pizza, burgers/grilled foods, salads, desserts, and drinks (no alcohol) with each area as a cafeteria line—you point, they serve. Each item is charged separately so you can take any variety and quantity you want. I had a chopped steak, couple of vegetables, salad, and drink and Sandy had sauerbraten, couple of veggies, salad, and drink—both full meals. When we checked out, the total charge for everything was $9.85! I had long forgotten about the food costs in the government facilities but that was a pleasant surprise. We went back the next night for another good but inexpensive meal.


Anchorage is a major city and we stayed here a week to run around and do some “normal” things (see a movie, get the car serviced, shop, talk to a non-RVer, etc.). Remember, we have been in (really) small towns and no towns for over a month now—certainly no cities. One odd thing is that I did almost no shooting in Anchorage. I guess it was because it is like any other city in many respects. The Anchorage Museum is an excellent facility and well worth the visit.


In addition to its International Airport, Anchorage has Merrill Field, one whole airport dedicated to accommodating small aircraft. Lake Hood is another airport in Anchorage dedicated solely to float planes. We were told that Lake Hood has more take offs and landings per day than Chicago’s O’Hare—if so, that’s a bunch.

We visited an unusual museum dedicated to the Alaskan bush pilot and their role in the development of the territory and later, the state. You simply could not survive without the bush pilots up here. Interesting is that the small planes are no longer made and the older ones were perfect. So they just keep rebuilding them. A flight in a 40-year-old small aircraft is common.



Talkeetna


This is a little town (850 pop. normally) that was (supposedly) the town used for that wacky TV show about 15 years ago called "Northern Exposure." I do not know if that is true but it makes a good story. It definitely has its share of characters. Talkeetna is 13 miles off the Parks Highway and is essentially a dead end. You cannot get here by accident.


Talkeetna is overrun with people for the Moose Dropping Festival. Our RV park is pretty low key except for the bagpiper who occasionally plays here in the park. As part of the festival, they sell moose turds for $5.00 (with a number painted on it) and then drop a bag full of them (with corresponding numbers) onto the blacktop. These bounce, scatter, and ricochet but the numbers (moose turds) landing closest to the "X" bulls eye wins various cash ($1,500 top prize). The leftover money goes to charity. VFW handles the drop—the member I talked to certainly seemed qualified to handle moose turds. One guy told me that a couple of years ago PETA sent in a team to make sure they were not actually dropping a moose!


Our campground is owned by David Greer's lifelong friend's daughter and her husband. So, we had a slight "in" when we called for a reservation—especially during the festival weekend. Like the other campgrounds up here, this one is a no-frills park. It works.

The campground is situated next to the Alaska Railroad Depot and the tour busses are all here (Princess, Holland America, etc.). They drop off and pick up LOTS of passengers/tourists every day. The train horn does blow but not in the middle of the night—thankfully!

Talkeetna is the main "jumping off" place for Denali climbers - and there are many of them. Also, there are lots of bush pilots here and services to drop you on the glacier near the base camp or just about anywhere on the mountain. Then it takes about 17 days for the climb to the summit if they don't mess around. Not my cup of tea!




From Talkeetna, we did a flightseeing tour of Denali and landed on a glacier. Great trip. It was the only clear day in four so we lucked out. We had a reservation for the first afternoon of the day we arrived in Talkeetna but kept calling and talking with them about going or not. We put it off, called Friday, and then put it off again until Saturday. Then we went. Perfect!

They landed on one of the glaciers. The owner of Talkeetna Air Taxi specializes in finding glaciers to land on so they can take climbers into different areas. Sounds nuts to me! With the safe glacier and landing marked, the other pilots can follow the markers and land, too—just like we did!




Denali

The Parks Highway goes through part of Denali National Park so the area where we are staying is (I think) actually in the park. This is not like a “normal” town but is a large commercial area set up to accommodate the multitude of tourists with RV parks, lodges, a number of the ubiquitous “gift shops,” and a gas station. This is where the cruises bring their people for a tour of the park. There are several major, first class lodges owned by Princess, Holland America, etc.

We drove up from Talkeetna on July 15th, parked the coach, and saw a show (dinner theater) called “Cabin Nite” the first evening we were here. There were about twenty tables. Ten people are seated at a large, log picnic table, dinner was all-you-can-eat ribs and salmon with plenty of veggies and salad. Your ticket is for the dinner and show. The show consists of lots of funny skits and music but centers around Alaskan history and settlement. It’s really well done. That was actually our third time at Cabin Nite. The first time was from a cruise in 1990. It’s definitely worthwhile. No pictures, sorry.

This is also the entrance to Denali National Park. You can only drive 15 miles into the park in private vehicles. However, park tours are available ranging from about 3 hours to 13 hours long. You board buses (some are school buses put to use in the summer) and get an excellent narrated tour. There is lots of wildlife and, depending on the weather, you may get a closer view of Denali (it's officially Mt. McKinley but everyone up here uses "Denali"—the native name meaning "the tall one"). At 20,320 feet, it is the highest peak in North America—impressive!

Just stopped in at the only (as far as I know) tiny grocery up here in this area. Ground beef and bacon were both $4.95/lb. It's not cheap up here. A decent dinner for two, equivalent to say, Outback or Dead Lobster, would cost $75-80 without drinks (beer or wine). In one restaurant, I ran across a nightly special that sounded great (salmon, topped with crab meat, and wrapped in a pastry) and had the presence to ask the price before ordering. Would you believe $42.00!!! It is common to find entrees priced from high $20s to mid $30s.

Burgers are regularly $8.95-$10.95. These are not elaborate, you get a good burger, but everything is pricey. A 4-item pizza (18") would be in the $22.00 range. Beer is $4.50/pint and house wine is $6.00/glass. Interestingly, wine by the bottle is priced all over the place and we have found it from a low of $16.00 on up. Probably the average is in the mid-$20 range.

In Anchorage, unleaded was $4.96. As soon as we left Palmer/Wasilla and headed north, unleaded was $5.16. Diesel is hanging in there at about $5.30/gallon.