Talkeetna

Talkeetna 2013

Denali Brewing Company

Ah, Talkeetna! A funky little town with great views of Denali and the Alaska range, home base for Mt. McKinley climbers, Denali Brewing Co., and expensive bakery visits (more about that later). Just turn off the Parks Highway at mile marker 98.7 and follow the Talkeenta Spur 14 miles until it dead-ends, and you have arrived.

There are a number of restaurants, campgrounds, and gift shops in town, and a number of outfitters offering flight-seeing and jet-boat tours. We still had a number of miles to travel this day, so our stop at Talkeetna was fairly short but enjoyable. We ate lunch on the deck at the Denali Brewing Co. (we split an order of delicious beer-battered fish and chips, Ron tried the Brown Ale and I had the IPA -- both very good) and enjoyed people-watching. We were blessed again with spectacular weather, so strolled the town and visited some of the gift shops before hitting the road.

We made a final, ill-fated stop at the Flying Squirrel Bakery and Cafe on the way out of town. Ron shot a couple of pictures, we purchased a loaf of delicious bread and some cookies for our Denali visit the next day, then made our way back to the Parks Highway in route to Healy for our Denali visit.

We made a stop at the Alaska Veterans Memorial, where Ron discovered that he had placed his Sony DSLR camera on top of the rental car before we left the Flying Squirrel. Of course, it had his most expensive lenses mounted at the time. We made a frantic phone call to the bakery, but no one had turned in a (smashed or otherwise) camera, so we decided to return -- hey, what's another 160 miles round-trip when you are on an epic 2,000 mile roadtrip across Alaska? While we believe that the camera most likely never made it out of the Flying Squirrel parking lot, I regret to say that we found neither the camera nor any evidence of it's demise. Thus, Talkeetna will ever be known to us as the home of the $1,012 bakery stop. Ron plans to call our insurance agent to inquire if we are covered, but doubts that we have insurance for brain farts.

Alaska Veterans Memorial, Parks Highway

The Alaska Veterans Memorial is a nice stop along the Parks Highway if you are heading towards Denali. It's located at mile marker 147.1. There are picnic tables, bathrooms, visitor information, and on clear days, there are supposed to be good views of Mount McKinley/Denali. Unfortunately, the mountain wasn't out when we visited, and we were a bit distracted by the missing camera.

After our detour, we finally arrived in Healy around 7 p.m. for our next-day visit to Denali National Park.

More photos of Talkeetna and the Parks Highway at this link. Not as good as DSLR photos, but at least we have some!