Thursday August 30 – Scenic flight around Mt. McKinley and dinner in Talkeetna

Except for actually getting married, the flightseeing trip around Mt. McKinley has been the highlight for me as I write this on September 2. We got another van from Denali back to the airstrip in Healy, then back on the plane with Erica and Trent as pilots again. We flew back to Talkeetna but took a totally different route. This time we went near Mt. McKinley and through the Ruth Glacier. This is a map from Talkeetna Aero Services’ website with some of what we did, plus we did Mt. McKinley.

I told Erica and Trent I was going to write about them and they seemed delighted, so here’s a picture of them in front of the plane (complete with my shadow taking the pic, lol):

I really cannot even accurately portray how amazing this second flightseeing tour was.  Erica and Trent told us all kinds of nifty information, such as how the glaciers were made; why the water pools on the glacier look blue; and much more. They identified different mountains and glaciers and such. I really can’t even describe what we saw, so here are some pictures. The full set of pics from this tour are at http://www.flickr.com/photos/48311514@N00/sets/72157601780942362/

When the flight was over we went into “downtown” Talkeetna and ate at the Wildflower Cafe.

We were shocked at the prices – but then again, we are cheap Walmart rednecks, lol. I got a FABULOUS halibut dinner with bread, a great salad with a mixture of greens (not just iceberg from a bag like at Princess’ Twenty Three Twenty), rice, fresh steamed veggies, and garlicky red mashed potatoes. All was incredibly good – but the $28 price seemed outrageous to me. However, that was the same price range for dinner of everyplace in town to the best of our knowledge. A can of Sprite was $2!!! Walter got a Philly steak sandwich (which I didn’t even want to taste; I hate what other regions label as Philly when I had the real deal at home up until the year 2000!) and fries. He said it was good, but he’s had better.

I would have expected some fancy décor for those prices, but it was a couple of dining tables that looked straight from Walmart along with some cheap cafeteria-style tables and chairs. The bathroom, on the other hand, is neat. It was painted with all sorts of wildflowers. It’s a shame they didn’t exert that energy out in front. They had neat centerpieces on the tables – what appeared to be real rocks with the bottom sanded flat and a hole drilled in the center, with water and flowers in it.

When we were done eating we went back to the Princess and I promptly crashed!