Talkeetna and Nancy Lake SRA

Day 46  Saturday July 30,2016                                                                           Nancy Lake SRA, site 13

150 miles           10.4 mpg

It rained most of the night and was raining when we woke up.  It rains a lot in Alaska.  We were in no hurry this morning and posted another blog while we had a signal.  We left the “campground” at 09:15.  On the way down the Parks Highway towards Anchorage, we past Denali View North and Denali View South.  Both these turnoffs are excellent views of Denali ON A CLEAR DAY.  Those don’t happen very often around here.  There weren’t any cars at neither of these turnoffs.  Both these areas have a “camping” area which charges a fee.  It is nothing but a parking spot with a picnic table.  We had it better where we were.

We made a side trip to Talkeetna which was 14 miles up a spur of the Parks Highway.  It is a little touristy town with quite a history.  The Alaskan Railway stops there dropping off cruise ship people to go rafting, flight seeing, and eating and drinking and being merry spending their money at gift shops.  We drove into town and could find nowhere to park an RV.  Found a parking area that charges $5 for five hours and we took it.

Walked the streets like tourists (because we were) looking for that special T-shirt.  Marsha wanted one that said ALASKA across the front, but if any of them did, it also said Talkeetna, like mine does.  So she didn’t buy one.

The Denali Brewery Co. is also located in Talkeetna and they had a café on the main drag.  We had some lunch there.  I had reindeer meatloaf and she had Alaskan cod fish and chips (sweet potato fries).  Both were excellent.  The reindeer (caribou) meatloaf was 1/3 beef, pork, and reindeer.  Marsha’s beer battered cod was from the Bering Sea.

Talkeetna is also the jumping off place for bush pilots, big game hunters, and Denali mountain climbers.  Here’s a few photos Marsha took in Talkeetna.

This is a common site around Alaska.  Even in Talkeetna, an upscale tourist town.

We then moved on, not knowing where to spend the night.  We were, in general, working our way over to Glennallen again, and then up the Richardson to the Paxson area.

But for now, we wanted to stop before we got to Anchorage.  Marsha looked up in the RV Alaska bible that there is an SRA called Nancy Lake near Willow, AK that sounded pretty good.  It was 24 miles north of Wasilla.  That’s where we ended up.  We arrived at 15:30 and drove around all three loops and picked site 6.  After backing in we realized it was too sloped and uneven side to side.  Bad enough to have to unhitch and jack one side of the trailer up until the wheels are off the ground.

We moved to site 13, which was almost perfectly level, but sort of near the road we came in on, Buckingham Palace Road.  That’s an appropriate name for a redneck road with quads running up an down it all afternoon. 

Nancy Lake SRA, site 13

 We took a walk down to the lake and it was quite large and had a lot of houses on it.  There were some boats and some jet skis.  It’s a weekend playground for Anchorage and Wasilla.

We had 4G LTE cell signal and posted the last day in Teklanika, the two days in Fairbanks, and the 1^st day in Chatanika.  They were all ready to go, just needed a cell connection for a hot spot.

It was a nice site and we had the loop to ourselves.  Eventually the road noise quieted down when the kids had to take their toys home and eat supper.