Talkeetna

Took a day trip to Talkeetna a very interesting town.  The Alaska Railroad has a stop there and folks ride the train in spend the day and then head back out.  Full of bars, restaurants and gift shops.  Sits on the banks of the Susitna River.

On the way to and from Willow, we kept passing two guys building a log cabin along side of the road.  They put is all together here to make sure it all fits then number the pieces, take it apart and move it to your site.  Then Cut the doors and windows you want. Wood is White Birch and they hand strip the bark from all the logs. Wow!

7/16/17 – Departed Willow and heading to Homer. Along the way, being the nice guy I am on the road, I had some cars stacked up behind me so I pulled off into what looked like a smoothie turnout. To my surprise, it had the biggest pot hole I have hit on this trip so far. Needless to say it was quite a jolt, but everything seemed OK so we continued down the road. About a mile later I feel a vibration and hear something dragging so I pull off at the next pullout. The force of hitting that hole broke the rear leveling arm linkage which inflates and deflates the air bags as you go down the road.  The linkage broken, all the air deflated the air bags and I was dragging the mud guard and the tow bar of the Jeep was almost digging into the asphalt.  So it’s Saturday and everybody around here is fishing, cause the salmon are running, so I could not get any local help.  This happened outside Anchor Point, not far from Homer. Anyway, the population of the nearest town was “60”! So an emergency call to Yvette at La Mesa who helped me get in touch with Jeff in Service who was able to walk me thru positioning the valve and zip tying it in place so I could get a little further down the road. Thanks Jeff for taking my Saturday 911 call. 

The roadside fix got us to Homer and the Crestview RV Park.  They were full, but found us a place in overflow the first night and then full hookups for the next two nights.  On Monday I called world famous Service Advisor Frankie Salazar who helped parts identify the part and we are having is Air shipped to Anchorage, our next stop.  While here I took apart my roadside fix and did a better job with some duct tape and electrical tape to keep the weather off the repair.

 The views are once again breathtaking. Everywhere you look the majestic mountains and Cook Inlet continue to make you want to live here.  Then you remember there is a winter. A couple of good restaurants here and lots of bars, as we know it’s hard work and you get thirsty fishing. Went out on a charter with Homer Ocean Charters and the got us all to limit out on Halibut and Salmon. There were 6 on the charter which made it real nice. The largest Halibut of the day, 70lbs.  They make it very easy with the fish processor picking it up, filet it, vac-pack and freeze and you pick it up the next day. No mess or smell, which are the main reasons I catch and release. We saw whale, orca and dolphin also no the day trip. Lots of pictures, here are a few.

7/22/17 – Detour on the way, we decided to go to McCarthy and  Kennecott Mine. We lucked out and were able to get a site on the Klutina River in Copper Center.  The fishing was off, but it was fun and Linda got to try her hand at fly fishing.  RV park was King for a Day, referring to the fish they expect to catch there.

7/23/17 – Took off at 0700 for a long drive to McCarthy.  First hour was pretty good road on asphalt to Chitina and then the gravel road started.  66 miles full of some very large pot holes all the way. 2 1/2 hours one way from Chitina to McCarthy, but it was one of the things we had on our bucket list for this trip.  Glad we did it. The mill is 14 stories tall and it was quite a climb to get to the top. Once there we went thru the various levels of the mill to see how it worked. The 5 mines were above the mill and fed by cable car.