Day 25
7/15/26 Wednesday
Off the grid Denali Highway to Palmer AK
Mosquito count: am = zero. Pm=zero
It rained most of the night and we woke up to being enshrouded in fog. I am happy we had a good view last night because this morning it’s like looking into the abyss.
The road was all nice smooth gravel this morning leaving our camp overlook. After a few miles we quickly came out of the fog that was covering the flat.
Since we crossed into this side of the pass we are in a boreal forest again. Skinny stunted spruce trees and tundra bushes. The guide keeps telling me about blueberry picking when it’s in season. I wish it was the season!I love a fresh blueberry. It’s like raspberries… there’s no comparison to the nearly tasteless berries you get from the grocery store.
Nenana River. This is the first river valley we entered today. Pleasant sight.
Beaver pond breakfast stop. An eagle flew over the pond while we’re eating breakfast.
Denali vs McKinley?. What do we call it today? Seems to be split depending upon your Presidential preference. Under Trump it is back to McKinley… kind of like Gulf of Mexico. Do we acknowledge the reversal of the reversal or ignore it??
Denali is no where to be seen today. Far too cloudy (and rainy). The Milepost tells me that I would have had no less than 25 opportunities to see it by now. Makes me sad, but it is the “rainy” season.
Talkeetna. Built by railroad and gold mining but currently powered by Denali NP tourism, river tourism and flight seeing tourism. There is still a passenger railroad from Anchorage to Fairbanks… daily! I bet that’s a beautiful trip as it follows major rivers most of the way north to Fairbanks.
Flying Squirrel Bakery. It was worth the stop. It was a cute little cafe. We caught if perfectly… it was not busy. The cafe is tucked off the highway in the woods on the road to Talkeetna. Breads, coffee, good sandwiches.
When we arrive in Talkeetna it is swarming with tourist buses and people meandering the street with shops. The shops and restaurants. They are cute businesses but too many people for me. The train was also in town so there was a huge crowd to board the train.
We’ve had a few rainbow showers this evening. Sun is trying to shine through the light rain.
At the end of the little Main Street is the Susitna River. Three rivers meet right here. There’s a sign right at the water telling you which direction to look to see Denali. No view… no line today. There is a line today for river tours by boat.
Up the road on our way out of Talkeetna we found a place where they tap birch trees for syrup. That was new to us. We tasted it.. tasted similar to molasses. We were in and out and that was it for our Talkeetna tour.
Wasilla vs Palmer. We thought we were going to find a place to camp in Wasilla. We were also looking for a laundromat/shower combo business. There were 3 advertised. So we went to one in town. It was 4:30pm and we walked in. The sign said “last load at 5pm” and they close at 6. When I asked the woman in the office what the price for each machine was, she just replied “different sizes… different prices”. Okay.. “how about this one?” I asked. She said $5. All quarters. Then I asked about the shower… she replied $7.50 but only if she had hot water??? What??? You’re a laundromat? She obviously was ready to end her day so we walked out! I wasn’t going to rush my laundry rushed, or wait around for a hot expensive shower! Plus she was really unfriendly (that’s being nice).
In addition we were looking for an RV dump for our 7 gallon gray water ank. Everywhere in this area charges $10-20 to dump… no matter what you’re dumping! After that… we left Wasilla. And if case you’re wondering we did not see Sarah Palin or Russia… it was too cloudy🤣
We hit Wasilla at the rush hour. We couldn’t believe the traffic that hit us so suddenly. For towns of 10,000 and 5,000 it was so busy and all in 4 lane roads. Then I looked it up and this borough is 80,000 people! That explains why it was so busy.
The good news about bad news Wasilla is that we moved one town over to Palmer. The two towns are just a long bike path apart. We found an RV park along the Matanuska River that is just perfect. They had overflow camping (no hookups), hot showers (not coin operated) $5, and laundry $5 (wash & dry one load). Deal! Everything is clean, tidy and comfortable in the laundry room, shower and bathroom. Palmer is looking pretty good to us 😊
We got right after the laundry and showers then took ourselves into Palmer for pizza dinner. Everything is fine about Palmer.
We’ve had a few rainbow showers this evening. This area where our campground is quite beautiful and the mountains are beginning to show up! I’m liking this Palmer area quite a bit.
Boroughs instead of Counties. In Alaska they call their counties boroughs. I don’t know why they use this terminology.
Now that we know about the traffic here we will not be leaving early for Anchorage tomorrow. We’ll skip the commuting traffic. Jim has found a nice hike we can take in the morning. Then we’ll head to Anchorage
cinnicrew 