June 24 - June 30 Chicken Alaska to Talkeetna Alaska

This week we traveled from Chicken Alaska to Sherman, Alaska.

This is the Post Office in Chicken. It is a very small post office which has an outhouse behind it.  which is the standard bathroom in most of Alaska away from the cities.

 Our next stop was Tok. At the Welcome Center they had a thermometer.

 We started to see the Alaska Range Mountains as we traveled down the road.

 We stopped at a meat & sausage store where they sold buffalo, reindeer, & beef from their farm.  We sampled the sausages & bought some reindeer sausage. 

 Alaska has some BIG Mosquitoes!  These were Huge!  They were made out of metal & about 8 feet tall.  I definitely  wouldn't want to be bitten by one of them! 

 There was an Alaska highway marker at the Visitors Center in Delta Junction claiming to be the end of the Alaska Highway, but there is also a claim in Fairbanks to be the end of the highway.

 We walked through the Sullivan Roadhouse Museum. They have local & area relics from the past on display and was the original building from the early part of the 1900's. 

The Knotty shop had items made from pieces of trees that had knobs. It was a fun little shop with items of all sizes.

They had BIG Mosquitoes there as well but these were made out of the knoby pine material. This was also the last of some nice weather as the skies turned gray with on and off rain for the rest of the week.

 We went to the Tanana Valley Fisheries Center. We learned how they farm fish of different kinds.  They raise the fish & stock lakes with them.  The only tanks left with fish were rainbow trout for stocking later this summer.

 The tanks were 10 feet deep with 6 feet underground. 

 There were big metal birds made from nails at the visitor center.

 In Fairbanks we went to Pioneer Park. It is a free city park where you can hike, see quaint little shops, eat, & visit museums.

 In Pioneer Park they have the President Harding Railroad car that he used on his trip into Alaska for the ceremony of finishing the rail between Anchorage and Fairbanks.

 There is also Nenana River boat. A National Historic site.

 The airplane museum is there too showing the history of airplanes in Alaska.

We ate at the Salmon Bake. It was all you could eat salmon, cod, prime rib & several sides.  Way too much good food! 

On display in the inside dining room they had a huge quilt. It took up the area behind 2 four top tables.  The quilt had mountains on it.

 There was so much food you didn't know where to start eating. The served portions were big.

 We started seeing our first sights of Denali River.  Several rafts were waiting for adventorous people to tackle the river.

 We arrived at Denali National Park.

 We stopped at the Visitors Center to pick up information for when Jason & family meet up with us the end of July.

On the way south we stopped at the Alaska Veteran's Memorial.

 Where we ran into NOMAD friends who were also touring in Alaska. The Schmoll's Jack and Barb, and Henry and Barb!

We stopped at the Talkeetna Ranger station & watched their movie about climbing. The oldest person to reach the Summit of Denali was 79 and the youngest was 11. 

 The climbing season is coming close to the end. They have a chart that shows how many climbers are registered, how many are on the mountain, how many have signed out, how many have reached the Summit & the percent of climbers who reached the summit of Denali.

 We went to the Talkeetna Historical Museum. It has lots of local history. They had pictures of the town from when it had both a East & West side.  The river has taken over the West side of the city.  Several stores had to be moved due to flooding numerous times. The river had taken over a lot of the beach area that we had walked on when we were here in 2009.

 The oldest store is Nagley's General Store.  They carry food & basic supplies.

 We took the Alaska train round trip to Hurricane Gulch. It is the only flag-stop train left in the U.S.

In spite of all the mosquitoes we had our picture taken in front of the train. 

 The sites were beautiful along the way.  Lots of rapids. At this area we dropped off a family who wanted to go fishing. The train picked them back up on our way back and they had caught 2 rainbow trout.

 Mountain homes in the outback were few & far between.  All off the grid. If they want to travel anyplace they go by 4-wheeler or flag down the train in the summer.  The train sells locals a ticket book that they use for trips. In the winter the travel is by snowmobile.

 We saw views of the mountains peaking out from behind the clouds but no clear views.

 Hurricane Gulch was our ending destination for the train trip.  The train stopped at the train bridge above hurricane gulch. The views were spectacular of the river meandering below.

We stopped at the Sherman, its the smallest city in Alaska.  It has a population of 2. They couple that live there have their birthdays & anniversary all on the same day  They have lived there for over 50 years.