July 30th end -Talkeetna, Denali, then Anch to sell it all!

 As we moved North to Talkeetna, we were very optimistic to enjoy this quirky and cool City that people stop at before they're in Denali Park, and to see our first views of Denali mountain at 20K plus elevation!

We pretty much filled all of our time there starting with a 6hr train ride out to Hurricane and back.  Hurricane is not in fact a small City or cool place as we were thinking but a very high cool bridge. we did like the trip but IMO this seemed like a train going to nowhere in reality.  there were people who camped and river fished before hurricane bridge and that's what I would choose to do on a return train trip. it overall was enjoyable, it was also there 100th yr railroad anniversary💯, but still felt like a tourist experience.

the next morning we took a rare chance to sleep in, and then browsed around the cool Talkeetna shops until we had some good fish and chips for lunch. after that we did my favorite part of our vacation, which was a Denali flight tour for 2 hours with K2 aviation! 

  the clouds burned off and we had a clear view of Denali and a great day for a flight! one of several things where it was just better than we deserved that day :-)

we had a cool tour of the Birch syrup place, some cool cabins in town, and Lilly became so tired of Luke and my antics that we drove her to drinking :-)

next on the trip was Denali national Park where we have a bus tour booked but you can only go into mile 43 because a landslide took out the whole road after that and it will probably be a couple years still before they can build a bridge and repair it. we definitely would have liked to have seen more animals, but I'm still glad we came up and enjoyed some hiking and Denali park.  we all agreed the best part of Denali was seeing the sled dogs and petting them! :-)

finally we came back to Anchorage Friday and we have to sell everything or donate it or throw it away so that we can all fly home Sunday night.  holy crow ...will we be able to pull it all off?

I have been frantically making ad changes and answering messages on Facebook and unfortunately dealing with a lot of non serious AK tire kickers... Anchorage has turned out to be a tougher place to sell our camper and Armada SUV then we experienced in 2017, but we have finally prevailed!

  We managed to get our decently high asking prices for both SUV and trailer, but I do admit it feels like jusy by the skin of our teeth... with only one day to spare!  the trailer was pretty easy with three people that wanted it but the 2wd SUV was not.  they have both been trusty traveling companions of ours for years and they will be missed. but I know they will have a great second life in Alaska now :-)

We are now melancholy, but triumphant as we take our shuttle from our final Anchorage hotel to fly home via Delta. we have reduced our belongings down to just three check bags and the same number of backpacks. we're traveling light now :-). we enjoyed our slow Anchorage day sleeping in and spending a lot of great time at the Anchorage museum and gallery, before a restaurant dinner out.

 there was so much to overcome both at the beginning, and the end of this crazy good month-long Alaska journey and vacation. 

  I am so thankful and feel blessed to be able to have experienced it with Luke and Lilly!

selfie of our Delta flight home and thankfully we are not on the Alcan HW again! :-)