Old Denali Highway 8 (6/21/23 Wed)

After completing my last blog entry I put away a few items on the bike and turned around to find the area infront of the main office filled with backpacks, and a hord of teens heading for them. It was about 2300, and I was just heading to bed. They proceeded past the main kitchen and bath building into the corner of the woods for camping. That's a lot of people for the little area that my hamock hung in. The swarm in the woods was behind and next to me, became a girls and boys campsite. I didn't pay too much attention to them, just went to bed and hoped for the best. Turned out that's exactly what happened. It was slightly loud while they setup camp and then quiet. I slept fine, and as far as I know they did too. I'm sure my coughing and/or snoring wasn't a bother...

In the morning I slept late enough to have coffee, which opens at 0730. I packed up while most of the kids still slept. The other two riders got talked into riding out on The Top of The World Highway, by our host. They packed up and left shortly after I did.

I headed to Delta Junction so that I could ride the Old Denali Highway Rt8 from East to West. I found the ride to Delta Junction nicer in the sun than when I came that way days ago in the rain. Heading south from Delta Junction brought me into the moutains again, which was far nicer than I had hoped for that stretch of road. I wasn't quick enough with the cheap camera to capture the two tanks outside of Greely. But I did snap a shot of something crossing the road, which turned out to be a sqaud of guys doing field manuvers with m16s. Once onto Rt8 I was surprised to find it paved. One hostel guest told me it was a bad gravel road the entire way. To be fair it did turn to dirt sometime after the first 100 miles. And the rain most of the afternoon didn't help that section of road or the views.

The first half of the day it was cloudy and was damp in the higher elevations. But the views staggering. I did stop many times to take photos with the phone, but I have a lot more shots taken on the cheap camera. I've uploaded many pictures, but the panarama shots caused a problem. I didn't want to sort that out tonight, so I have to review what photos got uploaded and still needs to be.

Eventually my ride did get drowned out by the rain, so I saw even less. Even the ride down by Denali and to this resort area in Talkeetna where I now sit in the most expensive night of the trip. Tongihts lodging is at least $100 cheaper than I would have spent for a cell like box in Deadhorse, but it's an entire log cabin nearly on the water. Very nice looking outside mostly fitting interior. Clearly a few items didn't get left behind when the motel bought the cabin. So they grabbed a table and chairs, fridge, and a twin bed from the hotel. It's very nice and I could see spending more time here than I have to spend. From what I saw it's a little resort community, and I'm just off the end of town near the water. It's going to be hard to know if I should spend a bit of time in the cabin, or town, or move on in the morning.

My bike is fully covered in muddy dirt. And so was I. This evenening I just got out of the rain. Made a cup of coffee, had my left over pizza from lunch and watched Netflix on the big screen. A man called Otto was probbably not the best choice. Let me sum up the plot, Otto Anderson looses his job after loosing his wife and wants to end his life. Hit's a little close to home, but I still have my wonderful wife and I think my response was a lot better.