Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Day 4, Travelling from Fairbanks to Talkeetna (and Denali!)

Day 4, July 15th... Woke up right at 6:30am this morning and I don't know why. All we need to do today is pack up the AirBn'b in Fairbanks and drive to Talkeetna, which is about 275 miles, not counting the miles that we'll drive in Denali National Park.

We left our Fairbanks AirBn'b just before 9am and had a stop  to get some coffee.  Here's some pics of our place of occupation.

This was our bedroom.  I moved that little R2-D2 fan over to the window sill as there was no air conditioning in the place.  They had the heat on when we got there for God's sake!  The light coming in that window never changed much either.  One morning we woke up to a light shower and the sound of the raindrops hitting the big leaves on the trees was fantastic!  So relaxing.

The bedroom that Rob occupied.

The couch with the bright pillows folded down into a bed where Caleb slept.

That chair poking out behind the fridge was where I sat to journal our days of adventure!

What a strange little L shaped room.  We used it for some luggage and such.

We drove thru some of the most beautiful country that I have ever laid eyes on!  And with Alaska being our 50th state visited, that is saying something!  We weren't in any big hurry so we would pull off on a good number of scenic overlooks for some pics.  

It is truly amazing how the pictures on the computer lose their depth compared to the real thing.  The cool thing about the road that we're on is that there do not seem to be any police coverage, so a fella can really make some time on it.  At one point in a passing lane, I was "accidentally" doing 98mph and since these roads are built on permafrost, there's some pretty good dips in them.  On the 98mph dip, I think we got some air!  Not Dukes of Hazzard air, but air none-the-less.

I think, think, that this is approaching the Nenana River bridge but my confidence is wavering.

I think this pic was taken at a roadside bathroom, that smelled really bad, once our coffee had been "processed'.

The river pics South of Healy were some of the best but again, they lost that depth of what we were seeing. Truly stunning!
 

It got SUPER windy which made it feel much colder the the 58 degrees that it was.

 

I believe that we made it to Denali National Park  shortly after noon, but I don't recall for sure.  We did the shops, and visitor center before taking a short walk, basically a scenic route back to our rental car. We did the ~15 mil drive into the park which is all the further that regular vehicle can go now that  we'eve had a major landslide.

Caleb was wearing a mask because...  I don't remember.  Oh, I think you had to have one to go into the gift shops.  I went into the gift shop for roughly 1 minute and went back outside to hopefully meet a bear.  It did not happen.

On our walk.

On our crosswalk...

Same but looking the other direction.

You wonder who has "that mind" that looks at a mountain like that and thinks to themselves, "let's put a big-arsed hotel right about here!".  

 

This is at the ~15 mile mark that passenger vehicles can drive and we got out to walk around a bit.

 

On that big rock in the foreground, if you squint REAL hard, you can see people on top of it.  We did not go up there and I'm ok with that.

The joint with the yellow sign is the Denali Doghouse which is where we had lunch.  Mama and Caleb had reindeer corndogs and Rob and I split the Bonecrusher and it was fantastic!

What is a Bonecrusher?  From their website:

It was a BIG sammy and just right for the two of us.

After that, we hit the road again and after only several minutes of driving, we hit road construction complete with a flagger.  It truly wasn't too bad but not long after we got out of the construction, it started to sprinkle... and then rain lightly...  and then rain not-so-lightly!  As it turns out,  Alaska has a weather pattern that happens in a similar fashion every year.  You have the "fire season" in June and into July, then a front (the person on the TV called it a specific name and I didn't write it down, sooooo...) comes thru, generally with a little rain, but not much.  That fella described it as about a 10 year event where they get heavy rains for a week or so and it appears as if that's what we're getting this year while we visit.  It was a bit annoying at first in Talkeetna but when you saw how pleased the locals were for the rain and the fact that the Alaskans just go about doing whatever they were going to do anyway,  it made me happy for them!  At this point,  I'm thinking that some things we have scheduled could be cancelled, but oh well, what are you going to do?  We're in Alaska and it is still beautiful!!!

Around 5pm or so, we get into Talkeetna after stopping at Alaska Birch Syrup & Wild Harvest Products to go find our next Air Bn'b.  On the way there, Caleb announced that he was "hangry" and opened his his Salmon jerkey that he bought at the store.  It STUNK and Rob was pissed about that and went off on one of his famous rants and hence forth banning all jerky eating in the car or around anybody else who had a functioning nose.  Caleb likes jerky and Rob hates the smell of it.  All of it.  It makes for some absolutely delightful times!

The AirBn'b was a bit of a disaster as this place was NOT up to snuff compared to the last one.  Oh, it was fine overall but it was only a 1 bedroom, 1 bath and guess who was not getting the bedroom?  

The boys!  

Rob was NOT happy with this development.   Plus it was raining like crazy at this point and we had not gotten to the point of seeing the happy local folks yet, so it was a bit annoying.

I didn't take a pic of the place because it never stopped raining, but this is the one that was right next to us and ours was identical.  They're pretty new and as I said, it was fine, but it would have been much better for just two peeps or two parent peeps with smaller kids.

Around 7pm, we head up to the Denali Brewpub in "downtown" Talkeetna, about 3 blocks from our residence.  We drove due to the rain but the parking sucks up there!  Food and drinks were good but the boys are not big fans of the town overall.  I won't be either if we get flooded out before we leave here!  It is raining hard!!!

At the Denali Brewpub, Mama Chaos and myself both had flights (small samplings {3 to 5 oz} of their various offerings. The food was awesome but the most surprising was that they had the BEST sweet potato fries we've ever had.  The three males are, in general, NOT big fans of anything sweet potato but all 3 of us thought that these were amazing!  We also ordered all 3 desserts and two bombers to take back to the house.  It was a LARGE bill but a fun time too with a great waitress!  

Back to the house we go as there is not much else to do in town because of the rain.  Rob's reading his books and Caleb is building/expanding his music playlist on his phone.  Mama is researching stuff for tomorrow and I am busy being Ted.  We have only one game of Blitz/31 tonight and Caleb won it.

Oh yeah... I didn't pack any sweatpants and since I pretty much wear sweatpants exclusively back home due to the 'rona, I was missing them.  I borrowed a pair of my wife's who is a head shorter than me.  It was met with many laughs from the peanut gallery.  What a flattering picture with the short sweatpants and my moobs (moobs = man boobs) on display.  Oh well, it could be worse, right? Maybe... I hope... no?

That brings us to the close of our day...  It's time for bed.