Fetching Janelle

Corinne Alaska, Family 4 Comments

The time had come to head to Anchorage to pick up Janelle, our youngest daughter. She has always wanted to see Alaska, and Mom and Dad being there (in an RV with an available over-the-cab-bed) was too much for her to resist.

We had to drive the 180 miles from Glennallen westward to Anchorage along the Glenn Highway (I put a map at the bottom of this blog post for reference). This road has got to be one of the more beautiful highways in Alaska.

There were multiple glaciers to be seen from the road.
We could have easily camped at this turnoff for a couple of days and just enjoyed the scenery out the window.
Dandelions and Lupine growing on the shoulder of the highway.

Upon our arrival in Anchorage, we checked into a nondescript campground (basically a parking lot with electric, water and sewer hookups for $70 a night) and “refreshed” the RV (dump tanks, get water). We hit up the grocery store and stocked up for the week.

Janelle’s flight was scheduled to arrive at 11:20 pm.

I took this picture from the cell phone lot at the Anchorage Airport at 11:30 at night. I saw a gorgeous sunset…again…at 11:30 at night. It’s still mind blowing.
Next to the airport cell phone lot was a small lake for planes equipped with pontoons. Every plane was anchored to a dock on the shoreline and every dock had a small shed. I would have loved to have seen inside one of these sheds, I’m guessing they are for airplane related supplies.

Janelle was retrieved safely shortly before midnight. At this point in time, it was 4:00 am to her. We went back to the RV and she immediately went to bed. It had been a VERY long day.

I took this picture inside the RV at midnight. In the early evening, we pull the shades to darken the RV. James calls it “activating dark mode.” By blocking the sunlight, you trick your body into thinking the sun is setting. We still get light leaking in around the perimeters of the shades, but the darkness created is enough to fool our minds. We have not had any trouble sleeping.
After not too many hours of sleep, Janelle was up and happy to be in Alaska.

At this point, we had to decide where to go. We had two destinations planned for Janelle’s visit…Denali National Park to the north and Seward to the south. But which to do first? We HAD planned to go to Seward (Kenai Fjords National Park boat tour) and then Denali, but James checked the Seward marine forecast and there were 14 foot seas and gale force winds. PIVOT! We decided to go to Denali first.

We headed out of Anchorage to Talkeetna for a night…our Denali reservations didn’t start till the next day. Talkeetna had been mentioned in a number of fiction novels I had read. I knew pilots flew out of there for interior destinations, but that was the extend of my knowledge.

The sight of large buses with the names of cruise lines on them was our first clue that Talkeetna was not going to be some sleepy little town. The town used to be sleepy, but it has turned into a quirky tourist town. Want to ride behind a sled dog? Want to take a flightseeing tour? Want to float down a river? Want to buy a souvenir? Want to have an overpriced meal? Check, check and check. Talkeetna is your kind of town.

There were some historic aspects to the town. A number of old log cabins that had been lived in up until the 1970s were preserved and we checked them out.

But all in all, we are not tourist town types of people and we were underwhelmed. Although I did find one store I enjoyed.

Yes, I found a quilt shop, The Patchwork Moose.
And I found a lovely selection of Alaska themed batiks.
I did not walk out empty handed.

Talkeetna was a “Meh” for us. I am sure others absolutely love this touristy town. Not us. The next morning (and the next blog post) we were headed for Denali National Park.

One more thing…James just pointed out that it’s been 1 month and 4900 miles since we left New Mexico.

Roads traveled in this blog post.

4 thoughts on “Fetching Janelle”

  1. Holly

    How beautiful! Glad Janelle made it safely (Hi, Janelle!) And thanks for the maps – it does help to ground your travels.
    [And yarn shops near the quilt shop? I know quiviut yarn comes from Alaska somewhere.)]

    1. Corinne Post author

      I was reading about quiviut yarn. It comes from muskox. No, I haven’t seen any in stores, but I’ll keep my eyes open. I am betting it has to be expensive. Chasing down a muskox can’t be easy.

  2. Brenda Steinauer

    Beautiful pictures!
    I remember having to darken the bedrooms to “trick” your brain into thinking it is bedtime!!
    Love reading about your travels in Alaska!

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