We left our overnight rest area, Michele’s front yard, at 8.05 in the a.m. and headed out into the Anchorage rush hour in search of coffee and other breakfastly items. We saw both cars of the rush hour, and by 8.15 were already outside the city, heading north.
The town of Wasilla, where a lot of people live who commute to Anchorage, is a dump, so we didn’t stop there. The little city of Houston was closed, and we trogged up the Parks Highway without incident, except to exchange waves with some of the passengers on the Alaskan Railroad heading north, like wot we were, towards Fairbanks.
Now we found the first major scam worked in this wonderful state.
All the brochures, sales literature and other blurb designed to get you to Alaska wax lyrical about Denali National Park. We had heard various tales from fellow campers over the few weeks (months?) we’ve been here, and they all said pretty much the same thing, it is not worth the money. What you are tempted with is wonderful views of Mount McKinley and lots of wildlife.
Well, we’ve seen wildlife all over the place, and the real scam was revealed when we rounded a corner on the highway, and there in all its majesty, was Mount McKinley, and all it’s fellow mountains, and not a cloud in sight.
We pulled over on the side road to Talkeetna, and took some fabby “brochure” pix, and didn’t pay a penny.
When they get you in Denali Park, you have to pay millions of dollars, and then you are their prisoner! You are herded onto a bus with thousands of other sheep and shepherded around, mindless and clueless, going where they tell you, doing what they tell you, all the while they are milking your wallet for all they can get!!
Your Captain and the Pops saw through this as we were picture taking, so did not take the road into the park. We are wise, but not wise enough it seems. Read on.
The little town of Talkeetna is very rustic, very touristy, and we had rip off # 2 today with lunch. For the first time, a bad fish and chips. The chips were accompanied by batter blobs containing essence of fish, but no actual fish was detected, and Marlipops had a halibut taco, which consisted of two pieces of the aforementioned blobs, a bit of shredded cheese and a taco shell. For this gourmet delight we were charged $ 26.00.
The saving grace about this café was the waitress, who was about our age, and totally scatterbrained. It was her second day on the job and we could not work out how she would survive until day three. She sat down with us while we ordered, got our order wrong, gave food to us that should have been for someone else and forgot our drinks. Still, she tried.
After wandering around for a while we went back to the coach to find some ignorant Princess Tours bus driver had parked his bus right in front of us, blocking our way out. I went along to their office, politely enquired as to the kind person responsible, and would he move his bus. The driver was an arrogant S.O.B., and said he might not. I politely, again, told him he could please himself, if he didn’t move it within the next two minutes, I would just contact the nearest State Trooper. He moved, and as we drove off into the sunset, I acknowledged his help with the Alaska one fingered wave!
We kept stopping along the way north to admire the wonderful views of Mount McKinley, which is nearly four miles high, and permanently covered with snow, as well as all the other nearby mountain ranges.
We picked wild blueberries!
Despite the imminent danger of becoming bear food, we pulled over and picked a lot of fresh berries. Marlipops says she is going to make a pie……….. yeah, right.
We are overnighting at Tatlanika landing, at mile marker 276 on the Parks Highway, about 70 miles south of Fairbanks.
Wildlife watch today was pathetic, again, just a few scrawny squirrels.
