Thoroughly Alaskan

Mission 1  Accomplished - Dinner and beers at Mile High Pizza Pie in Talkeetna.

In the first page of this blog Dad set a few "must do" goals.  The only way to attain them was to stop in beautiful Talkeetna, 100 miles sounth of the entrance to Denali National Park.  It's a hard thing, but someone has to do it.  Might as well be us.

After leaving the ups and downs of the road past the park, we had a fairly smooth ride all the way to the Talkeetna access road.  The town sits 15 miles north of the turn off.  One actually passes it south bound on the Parks Highway and has to double back to the town.  it is one place more than worth the back-tracking.

Talkeetna is quintessentially Alaskan.  Athabascan Indians originally inhabited this area. They were a strong group that refused to let the Russian traders up the Susitna River. In 1892, gold was discovered in the lower reaches of the Susitna River, bringing miners and prospectors into the area..  Some of the claims established then are still mined.  Talkeetna's proximity to Mount McKinley, and early bush pilots like Don Sheldon, who pioneered landing airplanes on The Mountain's glaciers in support of, and to rescue, climbers, made Talkeetna the modern-day departure point for expeditions on McKinley.  The median age for Alaskans is 32. 4 years.  This town is full of young success-fulls, hopefuls and dreamers.  And yes, it is Mecca for Dad, the ex-bush pilot who used to "fly bush" in western Alaska.

On arrival we set up at Takeetna Camp Services RV park then hoofed it in to town, a half mile away.  Camping a bit out of town was on purpose.  We would need at least a little exercise to work off the calories we fully intended to consume over the next two days.

We had a fine lunch, chili con reindeer carne and a patty melt pasty (pronounced PASS-tee by the locals, perhaps to preclude misunderstanding and/or embarrasment as in "I want to eat a pase-tee") at the Talkeetna Roadhouse.

Afterwards we wandered over to the airport and enquired as to the possibility of a flight-seeing trip to The Mountain.  Weather was sunny in Talkeetna but the same winds that knocked us around yesterday were still blowing, even harder at higher altitudes, and weather on The Mountain wouldn't allow so much as a flyby from 40 miles away.  "Perhaps tomorrow", the dispatcher opined.

We settled for wandering around town, catching up on office work and napping instead.  When dinner time arrived, we were off for Mountain High Pizza Pie.  Dad had a Carnivore (lots of meat as the name implies) and Tim risked a new one to both of us, a Pierogi Pizza.  I mean, who ever heard of cheese and mashed potatoes on a pizza?  It was delicious!  And the fine Alaska-made microbrews served at MHPP made overconsumption of the pies quite easy.  Still, there were a few slices left for lunch tomorrow.

Mission 1 accomplished.