Day 21 - Palmer, AK to Anderson, AK

It was another very nice day for a drive in Alaska. Today, we got to play amongst the giants – bringing out the reality that we are pretty small and insignificant in the grand scope of things!

After breakfast at the Sunrise Grill (right next to our hotel and interestingly enough run by the niece of the lady that owned the place we had breakfast at the previous day in Anchorage), we fueled up and at Wasilla we picked up the Parks Highway (AK3), which would be our route for the entire day.

After a quick rest stop at Miller’s Market in Houston, we headed up towards Talkeetna, where we would meet up with Joe and Romy who were about to leave there and continue southwards towards Anchorage. After a chat with them, and wishes for a safe rest of the journey all around, we walked down to the river to get our first – of

many – unencumbered view of Denali and it’s snow-topped crest.

We then returned back onto the Parks Highway and continued on north and another stop for a great view of the former Mt McKinley (officially named Denali in 2015). Just up the road, we passed by Igloo City – now closed off permanently, but said to give off lots of scary/eery sounds – and upwards towards Denali Park, where a walk along the boardwalk and the purchase of a poker chip at the HD Outpost was in order.

Then, it was a fairly short drive up to Anderson and the Fireweed Roadhouse – built in the 1970s for the pipeline crews, and currently owned and operated by our gracious host Robin, who welcomed us with open arms … and of, course, her killer dog “Betty”. Robin recommended a place back in Healy for dinner – the 49th State Brewery and it was another very neat place indeed!

For the day, we logged a total of 587 kms (but that included a 130 kms round trip back to Healy for dinner and dessert) for a total to date on the trip of 10,300 km