We awoke in the second “pay to play” campground we had chosen to stay in along this trip. It was a pretty nice campground overall, and we had gotten to meet up with our friend who was staying there, so we were happy to invest in the spot for the night.
Our plans had been to meet up with Wendy Lou and her friend in the morning for coffee, but shortly after awaking to the sound of heavy rain I received a message from them stating they had headed on down the road due to the weather. A literal rain check. 🌧️
With the rain we also decided that wasn’t such a bad plan, so after our morning routine we headed on to our next destination; Talkeetna!
It was a pretty short drive, adding just another 16 miles and putting our total at 1,382 miles.
I guess when the State had been originally planning the highway, it was supposed run right buy Talkeetna. The town petitioned to have the highway stay away, thus maintaining it’s small town sanctity by keeping the town 16 miles off the beaten path, and thus not dealing with the never ending passing of cars zooming by. 🚗🚗🚗
When we arrived, We slowly drove through town. Talkeetna is a really small town even compared to Homer.
We were also super lucky because on our way here the rain had cleared! We parked on the far side of town in a parking area by the Swanson River, and headed down a little path in hopes to snag another glimpse of Denali.
Where the path came back to the river we tried to catch our glimpse, and though the weather was clearing up nicely it wasn’t enough to glimpse the mountain again.
So after some smiles and a peaceful moment we continued on down the path.
The path circled right back in to the edge of town. We came right out by a coffee shop Wendy had told us about the night before. She had told us that behind the coffee shop was a fun little experience; the smallest Thrift Store!
We found it alright, it was in an old food truck. We checked in a few times on our walkabout of Talkeetna, but it remained closed the whole time. 🙁 It looked like it would have been a pretty fun place to check out though!
On our way out from the back street where the Thrift Store Truck lived, we walked by a pizza joint with this awesome setup outside.
We tried to wash our hands but the water wasn’t hooked up to the sink. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s amazing how bad you want to wash your hands when you thought you were going; to and then can’t! 😆
I could see why people like to come up here, the town was the type of quaint I think our hometown strives for. Talkeetna pulled it off really well.
It seemed like a perfect little paradise for those that were chasing the Alaskan dream scene. Those who liked to rock the flannel or trail emblem designer shirts, Carhartt pants, hiking boots, horned-rimmed glasses, beanie caps, all top it all off with a beard or high-end coffee. 😂
Not my scene but to each their own, and the town was still super cute and super chill. 😇
The local market store even came complete with its very own friendly patron, following the same small town mannerisms that I was used to. The crazy (yet friendly) conspiracy theorist that hangs out and excitedly talks to everyone and anyone who will listen about it all day long. It was definitely seeming closer to home than ever.
Except for one thing…
You see, inside the general store was a beautiful cat. It turns out that…
…wait for it…
…that the cat was the Mayor of Talkeetna! 😆
Or maybe not… according to this Wikipedia article it is debatable if the cat we met (I am assuming Denali from the article) is the new mayor. Either way, it’s and interesting thing if you want to check it out!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stubbs_(cat)
Did I write that all with a straight face? 🤨
Yeah, definitely not! 🤭
I could see why people liked to come up here for festivals. Right in the middle of town was a picture perfect park, with plenty of space, a nice sized amp-theater, and nice bathrooms. The way the stores and restaurants were all localized around it was totally laid out alike vendors booths. It was the perfect place for a concert!
Right behind the park the railroad passed by. Yep- you can see the Alaska Railroad once again cruising by!
As per mandated tradition, when crossing paths with a photo stand with a face cutout, we immediately stop and I assumed the photo taking position for Laura. 😏
It always makes her so happy though. 😄
So we walked around Talkeetna, enjoying the views and soaking in the sun that was now beaming down. Once we had drank our fill, we headed back to the edge of town to hop back in Our Ohana.
And with that we said our farewells to the beautiful little town and continued on our trek.
With fireweed in bloom we continued on down the highway until we got to Willow.
In Willow we had to pull over for a few distractions. There turned out to be a really cool second hand store there, called The Willow Rose Thrift Store, just right off the highway.
But we definitely had to stop to check out this interesting place as well; Winter Is Here. It appeared to be an art studio that was themed after Game Of Thrones.
But we really pulled over because we noticed these guys!
Aren’t they cool? And after all, this almost counted as a photo stand. 😊
It appeared the proprietor of this shop had a lot of fun with the work he did. His work had a lot of character in it, and I loved the different sizes of the different fantasy races.
Next we were on to another big stop we were planning on our trip, another salvage yard. Knik Towing & Wrecking was supposed to be another one of the largest salvage yards in Alaska- and we were steadily approaching it as we neared Wasilla.
Ah….. Unfortunately when we arrived it was all locked up. 😔
It turned out the owners had decided that they wanted to take their vacation at this time as well. Good for them! (I guess…) So discovering this yard was going to have to wait for our future plans.
Laura had read that Wasilla had a great disc gold course though, so we decided it would be a nice stop along our way.
A little while later we were parked and loaded up with our discs, ready to give the course a demo!
We only played six holes, figuring we could try again next time we were up this way. It was time for a snack and reset before hitting the road again. Luckily the course runs around the outside edge of ball fields to one side, and this 4×4 path lines it on the other, so a rapid exit route from the course is pretty straight forward either way. 😉
Next we continued on towards Anchorage, and messaged Nick & Whitney hoping we could meet up with them again that evening.
Shortly after, we entered the Palmer area of the Highway. Why is this part important? Because this means we had come full circle in our loop around Alaska! Now we were returning to familiar territory for us.
When we arrived in Anchorage, and while we awaited word back from our friends, we made ourselves busy enjoying the town. We headed over to Bosco’s – a really nice comic and game shop in Anchorage.
Here’s a little side story:
Awhile back I had gotten super into collecting board games. I was constantly growing my collection as I discovered new types of games, and eventually began refining my collection as Laura and I began to learn what types of games we really liked playing.
To get myself away from the constant “Hunt” for games, and a nearly addictive habit I had developed in said process, I went on my social media and subscription feeds; cancelling, unsubscribing, and un-following them all. I needed to get myself away from the obsession and FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) that generally comes with the board and card game scene. This was during the previous winter.
So when we decided to dip into Bosco’s I was blown away by all of the games that had came out since I had been “up with the times”.
Still, I kept my cool. In the end we got to check out some cool games and escaped unscathed, or should I say, with money unspent.
Since we still had time, we had stuff we could do! So we headed to the nearest hardware store to buy some hardware and install our and grab rails we had scored.
First challenge, finding a situation that I could reach the top of the entry way handrail, preferably without hanging off the roof to do it. I couldn’t quite reach and work at the height it needed to be mounted at. After some thought, we pulled up next to a lamp post and used its concrete base in the Lowe’s parking lot, and could make it work!
While I was working on the handle someone approached us and asked if he could take pictures. It turned out he was from down south, and that he and his father custom built Toyhomes! He was pretty blown away by the fact ours was a 4×4 from the factory, and was super curious in the Gaco treatment. After a nice talk we hooked him up with a bumper sticker so we could keep touch.
A few stainless screws and some Lexel later, the new entry handrail was good to go! It was still going to get the Gaco treatment when we got home though. 😉
Next I was headed into the bathroom to install the grab rail we had gotten off the semi sleeper cab.
Time for another side story. Ever since our trip to go morel hunting on that bumpy road from our first shakedown trip, Kalcifer would work one of his mounting bolts out whenever we hit heavy bumps. I had been working on tightening it down, even substituting a slightly larger bolt it it’s place, but it kept on fighting me.
After the great Chena Jump Of 2020, we had stopped in Fairbanks at Home Depot and I had tried to get a wall anchor to work behind the tile for the bolt to grab.
Of course now it was failing again… So I gave it another shot. Trying another wall anchor while carrying the gut feeling this would eventually fail too, I decided when we got home I was probably going to have to drill the tile out. I had suspected a molly bolt wall anchor was ultimately the right choice, but Kalcifer’s original mounting holes were just slightly too small to fit in even the smallest molly.
We also purchased and popped on some new feet caps for the fold down ladder. The original feet I had installed last winter were beginning to crack, and it was an easy and cheap fix.
Nick & Whitney must have been busy that day, because we didn’t hear back from them. Laura navigated us to the Fred Meyer parking lot on Dimond, just being ready for us to land somewhere for the night.
Honestly, I would not recommend it as a overnight camping spot. There were no signs deterring us, but it is a very busy location all night long. Also they have trucks that come at night and spray the parking lot down, so it was a very restless evening for me.
Nonetheless, here was Kalcifer’s view for the evening.
And with our re-entry into Anchorage we had traveled another 113 straight road miles on our trip, putting us at 1,495 miles thus far for our The Shakedown Re-Write. Tomorrow would be busy supply day in Anchorage before we headed South towards home.
Geoff Murphy 9/10/2020
😊😉!