Wow am I behind on this! I’m writing this on July 1 – JULY, PEOPLE!!! I guess that is what happens when you spend more time actually doing stuff instead of writing about it!

So – hopping back to July 21… Happy solstice! The longest day of the year! This is a big deal in Alaska because in many parts of the state, there is actualy 24 hours worth of daylight! Fairbanks even has a midnight baseball game as part of their celebration! We were not around anymore, so we went in search of some other fun stuff.

So we started the day back at Creekside Cafe, then on the road to Talkeetna.

On the way, we were graced with awesome views of Denali from the road, and so much jaw dropping and perma-idiot-grins! We stopped a few times for pictures.

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Along the drive, Sarah asked me if I knew what a “gulch” was. Sure, it’s a big steep valey looking thing that they talk about in the old western moves – like “Dead Man’s Gulch”. Then we came to Hurricane Gulch. Not quite like the westerns, but pretty awesome!

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We made a side trip to Talkeetna, which is about 14 miles off the main highway. The Talkeetna Spur Road goes to Talkeetna – and then stops. There seem to be a lot of roads like that in this state. On the way into town, we stopped at Denali Brewery, which was pretty good. After we had some snacks and a flight to taste some of their creations we headed to town to walk around. The main strip in Talkeetna is a quirky / cutsie / hippie sort of area. Like most towns in Alaska, it’s small and along a river. There were a lot of people out on the street enjoying the warm weather, music and food… so we got ice cream. We walked up and down the street, also enjoying the weather and the evening, and walked down to the river.

Even though it was the solstice and was only 8pm, we are still on central time and were exhausted, so we headed back to the RV to search for a place to sleep for the night. We didn’t see anyplace in the area to boondock, so we drove back south to Parks Highway in search of a place to park for the night. We landed at Sheep Creek Slough, which is a public campground about 1.5 miles off the highway. The camping was free and it was a really nice clean area. There were only three other groups that were there, so super quiet! We didn’t quite make it to midnight for the solstice, unless you count it from a different time zone.