Memorial Day Weekend

We participated in the Memorial Day Ride again this year.

On Saturday, Stephen joined a group of bikers for the 4 hours ride up to the Denali area. The girls and I met him up there at the Denali Grizzly Bear Campground. This year we rented one of the "premium cabins" which was a thousand times nicer than last year's tent site, which was wet and freezing. The cabin had its own bathroom, 2 beds, a table and chairs and a TV. It also had a little front porch which overlooked the rushing Nenana River.

We stayed there Saturday night. The Ride took place Sunday. It went from Mary's McKinley View Lodge at milepost 135 of the Parks Highway and ended at the AK Veterans Memorial at milepost 147.

Our previous intention had been to do the whole loop around through Fairbanks and down the Richardson Highway back to our home. But on further consideration, we decided that would involve too much driving for the limited amount of time left in the 3-day weekend. So we opted to just backtrack to Talkeetna on Sunday afternoon and stay at the Meandering Moose B&B in a cute little cabin called the Bear's Den for one night.

We love Talkeetna. We strolled through the town on Sunday evening and again this morning. Yesterday, we got some chocolate at the Chocolate Cache Cabin. And we walked down to the rock beach along the Talkeetna River.

This morning we spent some time at the Talkeetna Cemetery in honor of Memorial Day. There is a special memorial wall dedicated to the climbers who have perished on nearby mountains, including Denali. All of the markers in the cemetery were festooned with American flags.

We also spent some time at the Talkeetna Historical Society Museum which has a great replica of Mt. McKinley (Denali).

On our way home from Talkeetna, we stopped by the Houston Lodge for lunch.

The weather was awesome. Blue skies, snow streaked mountains, lots of sunshine.