Saturday July 3

Rained last night. I was online reading a little more about Talkeetna and I noticed that according to one web site there was a bakery in town that made a pretty mean ginger cookie. I found the bakery and they were right. Best I've ever had.

Like I said, Talkeetna is a stop on the Princess Cruise lines itinerary. Here's how it works. Every time a bus rolls through town or the train flies by, within 5 minutes the town goes from quiet and quaint to mobbed. Then, in about 2 hours time, the town is empty again....cycle after cycle, and, I'm sure, all summer long.

The tours are a funny thing. You can see the busses shuttling people all over Alaska, folks being whisked from one local to the next. Everyone's got their matching tour bags and looks like they just got out of the shower (maybe I'm a little jealous about the shower). They are essentially trapped in the tour. Doing it my way, I'm allowed to go walk through the woods or go fishing all day if I like......really the reason I came. I'd say the average tour lasts about 2 weeks and costs about 5 grand. I know I'll have spent $3,000 on gas by trips end and probably more on other things, but my trip will last 73 days and that's not too bad. These tours seem to provide a sterilized view of Alaska because they take you to all the very best places. The fact is, people here are pretty hard up, they bust their asses every day in some pretty harsh conditions for not a lot of money. The tour busses skip the shacks and huts that many people live in, the ones that I see when I've traveling down a dusty dirt road to some river. The crowd in Alaska is generally pretty rough, like the players in the drinking.....sorry..... softball league back in Fairbanks.

I fished a few of the spots given to me by yesterday's guide Skip to no avail. The water was running high. It was good to find these places now because when the silver salmon are here at the beginning of August, I'll know just where to be.

Drove to Anchorage via Sarah Palin's town of Wasilla, again, kind of a dump. Arrived in Anchorage late but managed to pass an hour sitting on a bench outside a nightclub watching the chaos. Half naked girls running in and out, guys fighting, everyone spitting and smoking. Quite a spectacle.

And....before I sign out today. Happy Anniversary wishes to my Sis and Ian. As you say, 15 long, hard, etc, etc.........

And special Happy Anniversary wishes to my parents......45 years, and a shining example to us all as to how it's done.....for shizel.