June 24, 2018

Hi, I’m Denali

We really enjoyed our cabin experience in Talkeetna.  We chatted with our host Don this morning about the good and bad of the business.  His has a four-month season, period.  He has seven cabins and is building his eighth.  He does everything himself with part-time help from his Montenegrin helper and helper’s girlfriend.  Running the numbers, if he can generate a grand a night for 100 nights less helper wages, expenses and taxes he should be able to eat for the whole year.  He said he could make more with a job.  We compliment him on his attention to detail that makes life very easy for his guests.  Plenty of hooks in the bathroom, a work area and towel next to the coffee maker, lot of room and seating choices and plenty of amenities.

We hit the road at 10:00, backtrack down to Parks Highway and head north to Denali National Park.  It is spitting rain off and on (surprise) with occasional glimpses of brightness that make us think there is a sun up there somewhere.  The further we get up the road the more spectacular the landscape.  After an hour and a half of going north we swing to the east through a broad pass between two separate ranges. The pass is many miles wide with nothing but black spruce growing in the permafrost.  Bleak but beautiful.  Lunch is another Subway just outside of the Park entrance.  We had said earlier that if the local franchisee was smart there would be a Subway at the park entrance, and sure enough, there is a line out the door.  No tuna????????

This is our get-acquainted day with Denali.  As we first enter the park there are two moose grazing on the side of the road among plenty of bus and car traffic coming and going.  Cue the Moose is our first thought.  In scoring large wild beasts, we are now at Moose, 4 and Whales 4.  The moose will probably win.  Our first order of business inside is the introductory film in the information center theater.  We sit through an artful 20 minutes of sights and sounds of wildlife in Denali and then a half hour film of dealing with Denali hiking, camping, getting lost, wading in rivers and interacting with the critters who live there.  There are great educational displays of the flora and fauna of the park and instead of animal pictures there is one of each stuffed and mounted so there is no mistaking sizes.

A number of trails start from the information center.  The desk ranger has given us a couple suggestions and we pick one that is about a 2-1/2 mile round trip.  The trails are smooth wide gravel and easy walking.  We are wearing the same attire that we would have on strolling down Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis while many of the folks we encounter are dressed for a safari.  We all look strangely at each other.  This area close in to the visitor center is pretty normal National Park stuff.  Woodsy paths, rivers, wonderful natural beauty and an occasional animal sighting.  Tomorrow we do the guided bus trip into the interior of the park that is all tundra and mountains

There is a drop in elevation as we walk to the first of two rivers that we will cross.  There is a log bridge across the first and about a quarter mile farther on there is a pretty fancy looking suspension bridge across the second.  Both rivers are roaring with snow melt which makes for a full sensory experience with the mountains in the background.  On the return trip we encounter a fresh pile of moose poop on the trail that wasn’t there 20 minutes ago.  Our alert levels go up a couple notches but we don’t see or hear any movement.  There is almost sunshine as we finish our “hike” and we are right on the 2-1/2 miles as promised.  For a trip to Alaska we aren’t getting a lot of exercise.

We pick up our bus information for tomorrow afternoon.  We will be leaving at 1:40 on an 8 hour ride through the interior of the park.  There will be a lot of leg-stretching stops along the way. Our B&B for tonight is about 16 miles north near the town of Healy.  It is a couple miles off the main road and a very pretty setting. We are greeted at the door by bubbly Dawn who shows us the ropes and our little room off of a common area.  The designer touches are very well done with Keurig coffee machines, pretty finishes and lots of art on the walls.  In our tiny room there is no TV (only in the common area), zero amenities (not even a bar of soap), no hooks in the bathroom and no place to sit or work except in the common areas.  This place is all superficial and last night’s was all substance—we preferred last night.

Bubbly Dawn has recommended Black Diamond restaurant near Healy for dinner tonight.  It is just south of town and it is not only a restaurant but also a 9-hole golf course, a lodge with horse and buggy rides, and ATV rentals.  There may be more but that is all we saw at first glance.  The greens on the golf course have some low spots where the mower bridges so the grass there is a couple inches long.  Now those are some tough putts.  Dinner is mediocre—John with a fish sandwich, fries and a salad and Mary with a smoked salmon appetizer and salad.  Service is equally mediocre with a couple local ladies and one eastern European.  (The Subway had a couple eastern European brothers working the sandwich line today.)

It is a little before 9:00 when we get back to the B&B and there is a moose just beyond the parking area munching on some feed that was left there for her.  She glances at us and then gets back to the chow.  This must be a regular occurrence for her.  The views here are indeed spectacular, and Mrs. Moose just adds to the scene.  Mary goes up to the breakfast room to get a couple coffee pods for morning and the Californians and South Koreans who are chatting there are discussing the Caribou at the trough.  Mary eventually convinces them that is it a female moose, and they now believe that in spite if her non-safari dress she is the wildlife expert on site.  Off to bed with moose now leading whales.

Todays observation: Today was the day we saw the Alaska you read about and see in the brochures.

June23, 2018

The Road to Cicely, Alaska

Or maybe from Cicely, Alaska.  Cicely is of course the quirky fictional little Alaskan town that was the setting for “Northern Exposure.” There has been speculation about what the real model was for Cicely and yesterday’s Seward and today’s Talkeetna are included in the mix.  Skagway is also mentioned as providing some inspiration.

We have a real sit-down breakfast this morning.  Our $20 breakfast credit almost covers our two salmon omelets with avocado and hollandaise in the hotel casual café.  We are enjoying our very nice room and don’t get on the road until 11:00.  Talkeetna is about three hours up the Glenn highway to Palmer and then the Parks highway heading north.

We would vote for Talkeetna as the true Cicely but not today.  It is a town of 450 independent-minded souls in an old mining town 14 miles on a no-outlet road off the main highway.  It is hard on the Susitna River and allegedly moose on main street are not uncommon.  It also is famous for electing a cat as mayor and our host here proclaimed the cat to be, on average, one of the better administrators the town ever had.  It is also a base for sightseeing flights to Denali, about 140 miles away.

But today, a nice June Saturday afternoon, it is home to a couple thousand tourists and the parade of the big white elephants (tour buses).  There is entertainment in the town park, bar patios packed with folks and the feel of a state fair.  It might be Cicely in February but not today.  There are some true characters around, but in this setting they feel like they are just actors in the play.  There are also a lot of “Pride” signs and rainbow flags which seem either out of place or in keeping with the live-and-let-live you might imagine in this part of Alaska.

We check into our cabin at Denali Fireside about a third of a mile from the center of town.  Our desk host is a jack-of-all trades from Montenegro.  We interrupt his cleaning of the rooms and later he will be out with Don, our host, building a new cabin on a back corner of the property.  It is an easy walk into the center and we explore for a couple hours spending some time in the park and more time on a bench on Main street watching the action.  We expected a more rustic experience, but so probably did everyone else who is here today.

We go next door to “Latitude 62” for dinner and grab a seat at the bar. John is still in beef mode and has the Saturday special prime rib with mashed potatoes.  Mary has the “Wendy’s Dinner,” a bowl of chili and a loaded baked potato.  Next to Mary is a transplant from Boston who was moved to Anchorage as a Walgreen’s manager.  She is very chatty about her life in Anchorage and her visits to Talkeetna to visit a friend.  The owner of the restaurant makes an appearance.  She is about 60 years old, 6’2” and about 240 lbs.  Her personality is as big as she is and she definitely makes an entrance as she works the room.  Maybe we have finally found Cicely, Alaska.

Back to our cabin.  We are 100 feet from the main rail line between Fairbanks, Denali and Anchorage and have been warned that there is a midnight train.  If it passes through, we are unaware of it.  Must be the mountain air.

Today’s Question:  Would the people of Talkeetna be happier if we all weren’t here visiting, or are they now too dependent on the tourist dollars?  Four months of noise and cash is probably a fair trade-off for 8 months of quiet.