Talkeetna

16 May 2012
7:38 PM

Sunrise at	4:22 AM	in direction	36°	Northeast
Sunset at	11:15 PM	in direction	324°	Northwest

Duration of day: 18 hours, 52 minutes (6 minutes, 58 seconds longer than yesterday)

We drove up to Talkeetna on Saturday.  I had the pleasure of seeing my son both Saturday evening and Sunday morning.  Rain had sputtered in Anchorage over the last two days and we continued to meet stretches of wet road, scattered by drifting showers.  Lorien suggested we eat dinner at the the local brewery. Denali Brewery Company's restaurant, The Twister was packed, a sign that the summer season has already begun in Talkeetna.  The brewery's beer was voted as the Official Beer of the State Fair for 2010 and 2011.  We visited over a simple, but tasty meal.  I am not a beer drinker, so I whether it is as good as Alaskan, meets the level of Homer Brewery or Silver Gulch!   

Breakfast at the Roadhouse was as good as I remembered.  We watched several groups come and go while we enjoyed a pancake each.  The pancake filled an oval plate and we folded it over to make two feather light and tasty layers.  After, I caught these photos of Denali and companions, Mt. Foraker and Mt. Hunter.  

Mt Foraker and Mt. Hunter

Mt. Hunter and Denali 

Denali

The cloud cover above was lowering, blurring the line between mountain and sky.  Lacking contrast, the mountain faded into the sky above and behind.  Transformations between sky and mountain were rapid, reflecting how quickly conditions change around the mountain itself.

Lorien overslept.  Finally connecting with him, we decided to drive out to his cabin.  It is not far from town, although Talkeetna is small and six miles away from the village's center encourages a sense of living in very rural circumstances.  Lorien's bachelor pad was a conglomeration of objects, books, food, and eating implements as befits a single man.  Yet ... I may be practicing full-scale self deception, but, it looked less cluttered than places I've see him live in the past.  And although there were a few dirty dishes from his last meal, there were also clean once carefully stacked in the drying bin.  There was space to walk across the floor, the clutter being relegated to the edges of the cabin.  

He and I agreed he would make better of it, if he had running water.  Heating water to clean means pumping it from the lake, the carrying water jugs into the house, heating water for cleaning, and then doing the same for what could not be cleaned with the first round.  Being reminded of the basic conditions of many Alaskan residents caused me to renew my vows - so to speak.  I have never deviated, not even for a second, from a clear understanding that under no circumstances, would I live in a dry cabin.

Lorien wanted to record his grandfather's oral history.  We were in the recording studio at KTNA for an hour and half or more.  I heard tales of my grandparent's lives through my grandmother's voice.  She spoke of flour sacks for clothes, clean-swept dirt yards, sewing and quilts, and food preservation and spoilage.  This recording session gave me a chance to see events as passed down through the men folks' stories.  I heard of successful farming techniques, road building, mechanics, and working at the age of eight.  I was reminded of my own introduction to farm life by learning to drive the tractor, watch my grandfather irrigate, the careful combing of cotton, and making biscuits for the noon day meal.

Later Lorien introduced us to a local pilot, Robert, whose home is across the road from the city airport.  He and another resident have been maintaining the Talkeetna City Airport as an alternative to landing at the State Airport, just over the railroad tracks.  The advantage of the local airport is its free to land, but the disadvantage is that it is not meant to be maintained like the paved, state airports.  On Sunday, it was soggy which made landing unsafe.  He has broadcast that it was not available open, but pilots still chose to land there.  

Robert - preparing to take a photo of us and an airplane parked at the airport

Above, the view is from midway in the privately owned section of the airport back toward town. The two story building, center-left, is the historic Fairview Inn. The south end of the airport is BLM land and made available as part of the landing strip.  

Robert says the local airport is functioning on borrowed time.  He is concerned that there will be a serious accident since he posts safety conditions, but pilots don't heed them.  He witnessed two such landings and both landings barely averted crashes.  In fact, he has his plane parked at the State airport, less than a mile away.  He says local support for the city airport is waning as more opt to use the better maintained and regulated State Airport.