Day 2 ! Talkeetna and Montana Creek

                                                               Sunday 8/24/14

Shopping for food and camping supplies! Guess here is a good time to report some of the prices.  Gas in Wasilla was $3.92 a gallon.  Some of  groceries at Carr's Food Chain seemed high and others not so....milk was $3.90 a gallon and we got a lb. of packaged ham cold cuts for $5. Not too bad!  The Walmart prices seemed cheaper  and very comparable to upstate NY.  Walmart had a whole aisle filled with freeze dried foods..everything imaginable : 5 gallon bucket of  vegetables, beef stroganoff, butter powder etc.  I'm guessing people who live off grid back in the mountains stock up on this stuff especially for the winter.  Wonder how good it tastes!  Mike bought a fishing license here  and when the sales associate looked at his ID , he handed it back and said "I'm sorry sir , we don't sell licenses to New York State Residents"  Ha Ha, seems he lived in Syracuse for a couple years and his ex wife still does. He was in a bad motorcycle accident on  the corner of S. Salina Street and....yup ! He was a talker! I think we got his whole life story..his estrangement from his father, joining the service, etc etc etc! (And we weren't even in a bar..just the Walmart Sporting Dept.)

View from the Walmart Parking Lot in Wasilla!

The further you get away from Anchorage and Wasilla the  higher the prices get!  Gas in Willow was $4.05 (about an hour up the Parks Highway from Wasilla) It was a rainy day so we took our time, drove in for a bit on the Willow side of  Hatcher Pass , fished a little , checked out other fishing spots along the Parks Highway and ended up in Talkeetna. (The barmaid the night before at the Roadside Inn had suggested we go there... said it was an old hippie town! hmmm..did she think we looked like old hippies? ) The traffic was not heavy and we were surprised when we got to Talkeetna, it was packed!  Lot's of Tour buses and people off the Alaska Railroad just milling around.  Talkeetna, a historic tourist town, is the most convenient location to reach Denali (Mt. McKinley,) making it the staging area for approximately 1,000 climbers each year who attempt to reach the summits (its highest is 20,320') Also,there are  many scenic flightseeing tours to the face of the Mountain that originate from here... Mt. McKinley is 60 air miles from Talkeetna. To drive from Talkeetna to Denali National Park Entrance is 150 miles!

We ate at the Mountain High Pizza Pie. Enjoyed a  thin crust pizza and an Agave Gold draft beer made at the Denali Brewing Company next door. Our bill came to $30. A few days later I was looking in my Mom and Dad's journal from their Alaska trip in 1986 and surprise!  They also  had pizza on 8/24 and it was raining! Their bill was  $17, they were in Valdez)

More wildflowers in Talkeetna!

 Still raining! After lunch in Talkeetna, we headed back to Montana Creek Campground, $20 a night ...you put your money in an envelope .  There were pit toilets and no showers.  Only 2 others spending the night ..others parking for the day ( $10 fee) The sign said if you are caught not paying, you will have to pay the fee and a $5 fine....I thought  that was not a very good incentive to pay ☺! We did pay and someone did drive through and check later that evening. We hiked down to the confluence of the Susitna River and  Montana Creek to check out the fishing. Being a weekend, people were lined up "Combat Fishing" .  

 Was fun to watch and pick up a few pointers!  To get to the fishing spot we  hiked about 1/4 mile from the campground and through a culvert under the Alaska Railroad. (They actually install these huge culverts to give people access rather than have them walking  across the railroad tracks. 

• Back at the campsite, the rain had let up a little and we scrounged for wood for a campfire.  We watched 3  birds who were making quite a racket...2 of them flew off and we watched them  knock a squirrel out of a tree. Now out of sight, Mike attempted to cross a bridge to a trail to see what had happened. The third bird flew to the bridge to blocked his attempt...was squawking at him and  hopping  towards him as he approached. 

It did not get dark till after 10pm. Thinking that back home, it would have been  dark about 8:30 to 9pm.  

Rained all night...