Alaska - Part XI

Wednesday (still) - Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center and the drive to Talkeetna

So across Seward Highway from the exit to Portage Glacier lives the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. It's not quite a zoo and not quite a preserve. Basically, they take animals who can't survive in the wold and put them in large pens. Large - the bears have 3 acres of space each. It was okay. We saw reindeer and moose and a few other things. They were still building the lynx pen. We saw some other interesting stuff but nothing really turned me on. The owl was kinda cool. It largely felt like a zoo.

Then we headed back on the road to Anchorage. We arrived in ANC fairly late (9ish) and wanted to pick up some groceries at the natural foods store before we headed north in the land where, as Amy W. says, vegetarianism is viewed as a disorder. Natural Food Pantry (which arctic_alpine kept calling "Annie's" for some reason) is HUGE. Think about the largest suburban grocery store you've seen. Then add a little more. I think it was even bigger than the Meier's in East Lansing (including the clothing section). Anyway, this is all filled with lots of natural food. We got a good supply of things (but not too much because it was fairly 贵/expensive) and headed out at about 10. Now, Talkeetna is a good 1:45 from Anchorage with no traffic, so I knew we were going to get to the hostel pretty late. We decided to call and let them know we were coming late because we thought they would either want to know or refuse us entry. We got a machine and left a message.
I davened mincha at a gas station, and we headed up. Through the beautiful and large Mat-Su river valley. We crossed the Matanushka River and passed by Matanushka Glacier (the Mat part of Mat-Su).

We wanted sunscreen, too, and some snacky foods, so we stopped in Wasilla's Safeway which is even larger than Natural Pantry. Wow! We had a good talk at the counter with the cashier who laughed at the Weekly World News* with us - there was an article about seven cities that archaeologists had just discovered in Israel that were made entirely of halvah.

*That's not arctic_alpine or anyone I know.

Anyway, we continue our drive through the small cities that dot the Glenn Highway - Wasilla, Houston (where fireworks are obviously legal), etc. We called the hostel again and left another message as we were leaving Wasilla. We still hadn't heard back. It was 11, and we knew it'd be another hour. We were getting worried and kept checking that there were other places to stay along the route. We tried to remember what milepost they were at just in case. I kept the speed limit. People passed me (it's a two-lane highway that's mostly double-yellow down the middle, but who wants to wait behind someone going 65?) A moose crossed the road in front of us. Why? To get to the other side I suppose.

Other towns go by. It's a long drive. There are lots of "shops" on the side of the road that are basically trailers with signs on them. They generally say "espresso" - not coffee, espresso.

The sun is still setting. This is the latest we've been up this whole trip. It's not what I'd call dark, but it's definitely early dusk. We pass logging area and campsite, hotel and motel, forest and we exit onto Parks Hwy (AK-3) - This takes you to Denali but is actually named after former governor of Alaska Territory, George Alexander Parks. (Kinda like the Outerbridge Crossing - the outermost bridge between NYC and NJ named after Eugenius H. Outerbridge.) Drive more and more. it's pretty, there's music playing, and we're having a decent conversation, but we're worried about the hostel (call again, machine, hang up). I wasn't worried about making it awake. I was worried about having a place to sleep once we made it. Parks Highway eventually turned off at the Talkeetna spur, and we take that. Keep driving. Time keeps ticking. We cross the wide and ungainly Susitna River and eventually make it to Talkeetna.

Talkeetna is a small "city." It has two paved roads - 3rd St and B St. The hostel is on I St. That's actually its address - I St, Talkeetna, AK. No number. We follow signs that point the way until the pavement ends. arctic_alpine gets out to walk down I Street to find the hostel. It's midnight. She's walking alone as a tourist down an unpaved road for who knows how long. I run out to her and we agree to drive up together. Eventually, we find it. It was now definitely dusk. We're hungry, tired and scared that we won't be let in. But the front door is open. We give each other a huge hug. There's a note on the whiteboard for us - our rooms are in the back. Hooray!
The people hanging out in the front of the hostel were rather rude. We don't engage them in any further conversation. We bring in a few of our things (just the essentials really), don't bother cooking food (I had PB & J and maybe some leftover something, and I don't remember if arctic_alpine had anything). We were beat. I said maariv, arctic_alpine showered, we talked for a bit about various things including about the trip thus far and what we expected of the future, and we went to bed and slept soundly.