July 28 to 29, 2006 - Trapper Creek and Talkeetna, AK

We pulled out of Anchorage RV Park and John, who Bill met the day before, waved at us as we went by.  We drove north and turned onto the Parks Highway.  The weather was partly cloudy and warm.  In Wasilla we saw this store and took a picture through the windshield:

Yes, it is not a "Dollar Store" it is a "Dollar-25 store" where everything is $1.25.  The summer of 2005 our friend Sam found a $1.39 store in Alaska so we were on the lookout.

Mount McKinley (Denali) kept teasing us as we headed north.  Here are some of the better pictures through the windshield, since we couldn't see it from the viewpoints a motorhome could stop at:

We also had a great view of this other mountain:

After 111 miles we stopped at the Trapper Creek Inn and set up.  Then we drove back down the road and took the spur road to Talkeetna, we needed to know how long it was going to take to catch our flight seeing tour the next morning and to scope out restaurants.  It took just under 35 minutes to get to the airport.  Here is a picture of the famous "Welcome" sign in Talkeetna:

Talkeetna has a nice viewpoint for Mount McKinley, but it was mostly under clouds.  At least this picture was not through the windshield:

On the drive back to Trapper Creek we took this picture through the car windshield:

Here is our campsite at Trapper Creek.  Diane is talking to our neighbor who is the father of the new owner of the inn and campground:

Yes, it is a tight fit.  We had weak 20AMP electricity, good water and sewer.  The plan is to upgrade the campground in fall with 50AMP power and some heavy pruning and tree removal.

In the morning we drove to Talkeetna for our flight.  Erica is our pilot and the one pointing her finger:

The plane.  We had a Toursavers coupon for this flight, it was saving us $225.

Diane was behind Erica, I was behind the co-pilot, who flies customers onto the glaciers:

Here we are up in the air looking at the rivers, that is Diane looking out:

Reports earlier in the morning were that Mount McKinley was visible, by the time we got to it the cloud cover was complete.  Our flight was aborted and we turned back.  Another river view:

They gave us our money back and told us we could reschedule from either Talkeetna or Healy for the coupon price all summer.  Since the Healy flight is normally more expensive this is a great deal.  Our next stop is Healy and Healy is also about 100 miles from Fairbanks so we might be able to reschedule.  They cancelled the rest of the flights that day.

We went into Talkeetna.  Here are some pictures:

The West Rib Cafe and Pub was where we ate and it is in these buildings, it was good.  "West Rib" is one climbing route on Mount McKinley. 

Another view of the "Welcome" sign.

Trapper Creek was having its annual Fireweed Festival so we took a look. It was a small affair, but people were enjoying themselves:

We did not stay long since we were not looking for much.

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