Our Memorable Journeys

Day 12 - 9/2/2018 - Travel to Talkeetna

Today's Weather: Another beautiful day. High 64, low 47, mostly sunny.

As we drove north this morning we started to see the foliage of the birch and cottonwood trees turning yellow. We drove up into the Chugach mountains to Eagle River Nature Center in Chugach State Park. We stopped at a turnout by the Eagle River and I was so excited to find my first painted rock ever! It is beautiful and says “Miracles Happen Every Day”! We walked the Rodak Nature Trail and loved the quiet and peaceful views, interpretive signs, as well as a beaver viewing deck and salmon viewing deck. The naturalist at the center told us that just one week prior to our visit a crazy tourist was charged by a bear while trying to take photos of it.

Eagle River

Look what I found!

Along the Rodak Trail

Eagle River Nature Center

Rodak Trail walkway

We visited the Eklutna Village Historic Park, the area’s oldest continuously inhabited Athabaskan Indian settlement. Russian Orthodox missionaries came here in the early 1800’s, and St. Nicholas Church, the oldest building in the greater Anchorage still stands. There are colorful Spirit Houses built over the graves of the deceased—a custom that came from the melding of the cultures.

Eklutna Spirit Houses

Old St. Nicholas Church

In Wasilla we drove past the long secluded road where Sarah Palin lives, but we “didn’t see Russia”!

The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Headquarters are also in Wasilla. The center has historical displays and films on sled dog racing and mushers, the sled dogs and puppies. Puppies were so soft and adorable.

Trail dogs ready for some visiting mushers

We moved on toward Talkeetna on the Parks Highway and were treated to several views of Denali Mountain along the way. For a real “feel of Alaska” we decided to stay in a log cabin owned and built by “Old Time Alaskans”. We found the cabin with rustic log exterior and decorative log furniture to be very clean and comfortable with tv, wifi,, and cozy gas fireplace. The owner’s family joined with a hardy group of like-minded Michigan adventurers that trekked over the rugged and historic Alaska-Canada Highway in a motorized wagon train to homestead land in Alaska in 1959, the year Alaska became a state.

Denali from the Parks Highway

Our cabin

After dinner we walked to the end of Main Street to Talkeetna Riverfront Park to see the mingling of 3 swift glacial rivers to form the Big Susitna River. We walked to the water’s edge for a panoramic view of Denali and the Alaskan Range.

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