Talkeetna

A window sticker seen in a van tonight:

You laugh at me because I'm different.
I laugh at you because you're all the same.

I don't know if that's the prevailing attitude here, but things are very different here compared to the lower-48. At the very least people just seem to be more comfortable being themselves. No suits, no fancy dresses, just people being people.

While walking into town for lunch today a loud helicopter could be heard. I didn't think much of it at first, as helicopters sometimes land at the Talkeetna airport, no big deal. But when I saw that all the tourists were staring at it I knew there must be something different.

A local sourdough and a hiker were sitting by the river on the flats of Hatcher Pass. Just as the hiker said "It's a cool day", a red blur appeared on the gravel road, then disappeared just as quickly around a corner and behind a huge cloud of dust. As the blur streaked by loud music could be heard ("Let 'er rip, let 'er fly"), and as it slid around the corner a loud "Waaa-hooooooo..." could be heard in the distance.

"Squirrel, what are you doing in the car?!"

Squirrel looks up from his sniffing around in the car. "Oh, hi Al. The doors were open, so I thought maybe you had some Cheerios in here for me."

"No, I'm just trying to make sure the car is dried out after the water leaks."

My favorite Talkeetna bumper sticker:

"Talkeetna: A quaint little drinking village with a climbing problem."

What else can you say about a town that has a bar in the back of the grocery store?

If I'm here next summer I'm going to have to try climbing Denali. Hopefully they have stairs. Or maybe an elevator. :)

I talked to another local today who talked about the "magic" of wintertime here in Talkeetna (and Alaska in general). He said once the snow falls it stays white until April. He used to live in Iowa, and also said that it's surprisingly not that cold here, and that 40-below here is like 5-below in Iowa.

Another local at the Free Box told me that darkness in the winter here is greatly exaggerated. She said there is typically at least six hours of light per day. Time will tell.

I forgot to mention before that I think the river is at least 200' across in the area where I'm skipping the rocks, maybe 300'. I need to find a way to measure it. (Just thought of one way -- the bridge!) I drew a good crowd last night, skipping a few more rocks about half the width of the river. Some day maybe I'll be known as the rock skipper of Talkeetna. :)

It's 6 p.m., Tuesday evening. There's a knock at the front window. It's the squirrel. I open the front door. "What's up squirrel?"

"Another beautiful day" he says, pausing and looking at the clear sky. "You got any more of those white corn tortillas?"

"Yeah, sure, just a minute." I step back inside to get him a tortilla, and he comes to the doorway and looks inside. "Hey, nice place. You got heat in here?"

I hand him the tortilla. "Yeah, a Monitor 2200. A free-standing kerosene heater, over there" I say, pointing to the unit in the living room.

Living here in my quiet, television-free, two-story bungalow on the Alaskan Rivieria (see Maurice Minnifield), sites like YouTube are great for taking music breaks. I just re-discovered a song named "Not an Addict" by K's Choice, and my neighbors and I can't seem to listen to this song loud enough. There are a couple of good versions on YouTube, one live-ish clip from '97, and an acoustic version.

As much as anything the Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival is a big music celebration, with two days of music from Alaskan performers. One of my favorites was Melissa Mitchell, shown here: