Alaska Day 9 - Talkeetna River

Welcome Sign, Talkeetna, Alaska, originally uploaded by jsevier14.

On the 9th day of the trip, we’re inland at the Mount McKinley Princess Lodge. The big event of the day was a boat tour up the Talkeenta, Chulitna, and Susitna rivers. The weather was cloudy and damp, and again I was taking pictures from a moving platform.

Throughout the rest of the trip you will no doubt notice I developed a fascination with the Rosebay Willowherb. This plant is more commonly known as “fireweed.” While Alaska hardly lays exclusive claim to fireweed, the plant holds cultural meaning for the locals. It’s bright magenta blossoms show up when the weather turns good, then they disappear just before the first snow. After a forest fire, this is the first sign of new life, which might be where it gets its name.

So Talkeetna amounts to a main street, in this case aptly named “Main Street”, where the tourist spots and restaurants are. This sign, Beautiful Downtown Talkeetna, sits at the corner of Main and Talkeetna, the perpendicular cross street that brings people to the town from the George Parks Highway.

We stopped for lunch at a little spot on the opposite corner from the sign named “Sparky’s Drive-In,” which is a little misleading because you really don’t drive in. There doesn’t seem to be any place for you to drive up to a window, or park at a curb. I guess “Drive-In” just sounded right when the place was named. It’s one of those little airport hangar half-circle buildings. What got my attention was the featured menu item of the day, a Salmon Gyro.

Let’s see… as odd as it sounded at first, the idea grew on me. Salmon caught right down the street, pita bread, tzatziki sauce? This was just whacked out enough it could be good. Why not? What could go wrong?

Nothing. Not a thing. This by far hands down without a doubt was simply the best food we had on the entire trip. And that goes for the ship too. I told the cook and his cashier about it too. This, however, was almost a spiritual experience. The cook told me he just came up with it trying to figure out what to do with some pita bread he picked up. So go to Talkeetna, check out Sparky’s and see if they have the salmon gyros. And so it turned out lunch was the highlight of the day. Not that the river boat tour was bad. It wasn’t. Mahay’s did a nice job for us. The gyro was just that good. It was a hard act to follow.

I mentioned the day wasn’t that good for shooting. It as dark, damp, the boat we were on moved around too much and most of the pictures are blurry and unusable. There were a few worth showing… Toward the end of trip the guide shushed us, and pointed a bald eagle hanging out on a big rock over by the riverbank. Just sitting there… The boat stopped and we all stared. It seemed like the eagle noticed us and shot a “What?!?” look back in our direction. Then she lurched forward and took off.

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