Monday 15 July 2013

Alaska ........ part 3

Fourth Of July - Anchorage style

On the morning of the fourth I found myself in Anchorage on a drizzly, rainy day. Despite this, the town parade went on and I headed down to the mile long park strip through town to check out their celebrations. The town organized a carnival to be held, with food stalls, market sellers and fun rides for the kids. While numbers were down because of the weather, there was still a number of people out to line the mile long parade route at 11am. I admire their Fourth of July parades - they honor not just veterans, police, fire and ambulance workers, but also groups in community. It was a real celebration of Anchorage's community and I felt great pride from everyone I passed.

Leading the parade was Star, Anchorage's unofficial mascot reindeer, all dressed up. Star lives in a pen on 10th and I street and is the sixth in a line of Star's that started in 1960. If you want to know more, see Star the Reindeer.

Here are some pictures of the parade to see how much Americans enjoy their Fourth of July:











Following the parade, I headed out to the airport to collect my hire car and leave Anchorage to discover what else Alaska had to offer.......


Driving across Alaska

I have put in a page break so all these photos don't download at the same time and it makes it easier for you to read - just click on the 'read more' link below to see photos and read the rest of the post.



Talkeetna and Denali National Park

So I headed off in my cute Chevy Sonic hatchback towards the interior of Alaska. Grey skies followed me through, although as I got further from Anchorage the cloud cover got lower and greyer and rain decided to say a welcome to country. I was headed to Talkeetna to go on a flightseeing and glacier landing on Mt McKinley, but it was not looking like the weather would cooperate. Sure enough, when I arrived at the small, single runway airport where I would be leaving from I was informed it was a 'no fly' due to conditions. Considering that I had just read a newspaper story about a pilot in this company landing on the mountain and staying overnight with all 12 passengers due to the weather coming in bad, I knew this company took weather and safety seriously! The only unfortunate timing was that I would not have the chance to reschedule as I was planning on driving through to Denali that might. This was meant to be just a quick sightseeing stopover. However, it was not meant to be (and gives me something to do when I return!) so I signed off on my cancellation and took myself into town to have a wander around.

Talkeetna is again a small little town - roughly the size of Loch in Victoria, Australia or maybe Parachute in Colorado, US. It sits 14 miles off the Alaska Highway between Anchorage and Fairbanks and has a cute little two block square rustic main street, which is then supplemented with caravan and RV parks, little resort motels and then the tourist providers like the flightseeing, rafting and kayaking companies. The shops are very rustic looking and have great personality - I took some photos so you got an idea.
 
 







After leaving Talkeetna I continued on towards Denali National Park and again, even though I got rain for most of the way, it was still a beautiful drive.







I spent the night in a cabin on the edge of the park entrance. As I took many photos to show you all, I am going to leave off here and begin a separate post about Denali National Park.


So more to come, keep smiling!
Candice 😎

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