We were up early this morning at the hotel, and even managed to wash our dirty clothes from yesterday's hike so we could start the next phase of our Alaska adventures with everything clean. Sabine, the owner of Amazing Accommodations, picked the four of us up exactly at 10 a.m. for the one-hour drive to her place in Wasilla. We did the paperwork, and she didn't think we needed the usual orientation process since we have some experience with motor homes. So she gave us the keys to our 27-foot Leprechaun Class C motor home, and we were on the road quickly.
We should have taken pictures of the interior of the motor home before we started piling all our suitcases inside. We were very pleased with how new it looked, even though the odometer said it had over 30,000 miles on it.
It can sleep up to six people, but we think four is the maximum we would try. Two can sleep in the bed in the back . . .
with two more in the bed over the cab.
Our first stop was the Fred Meyer grocery store close by. Sabine had given us a coupon that this chain store provides exclusively to RVers stocking up on groceries. It was good for $30 off purchases of $150 or more. That coupon brought our purchase down to $153 to feed four people for the next seven days. That's quite a bargain! Fred Meyer also has gas stations, and there were coupons for 20 cents off for each gallon of gas. We have just become loyal customers!
We have lots of storage inside the RV, so we put our purchases away and hit the road. Our first stop was the Little Susitna River, because The Milepost mentioned that chinook salmon might get here as early as Mid-May. No pictures because there were no salmon. So we headed up the Talkeetna spur road. We stopped at a viewpoint that The Milepost used words like "fabulous" and "splendid" to describe the views of Mount Denali from here. They weren't kidding.
We had a few low-hanging clouds, but we will call that a fabulously splendid view of some of the Alaskan Range's most famous mountains. Many people never get such a clear view of these massive mountains on their trips to Alaska, so we have already been blessed!
On a relatively clear day like this, the sight-seeing planes are flying to give as many tourists as possible this close-up view.
We had to laugh when Denisa snapped this picture of Mount Denali. She got a airplane in the upper left-hand corner. Just below and to the right of that airplane is another flyer--a mosquito that flew in front of her camera. The mosquitoes at this viewpoint today are almost as big as airplanes!
Connie and Steven got their first good moose sighting as we drove the motor home into the town of Talkeetna.
We parked the RV at Talkeetna's elementary school, because The Milepost warned us of the narrow streets and limited parking in downtown. They were right, and it was much easier to walk into town for the obligatory picture by the welcoming sign. This little town's one-block Main street is full of souvenir shops and restaurants. It's a great place to book a flight-seeing tour or a jet boat trip. It's also the place where mountain climbers wanting to summit Denali start with a flight to a trailhead point at 7200 feet in elevation. We stopped at the national park ranger station and read the statistics on the number of climbers as of May 30. They had 953 registered climbers, with 502 on the mountain now, and 14 had summited so far for a 17% summit percentage.
We walked by Talkeetna's airport, with its grass runway, and saw a few airplanes on the ground. We watched as one began to position itself on that little runway . . .
and then it buzzed up in the air over our heads.
You won't be surprised to see that Denisa is also snapping pictures of the wildflowers that are beginning to bloom here in Alaska this spring.
Our next stop is back on the Talkeetna spur road at the Alaska Birch Syrup store. This company has been making birch syrup for the last 31 years. The process is much like the maple syrup process in the New England states. They tap trees and allow the sap to flow into buckets. But instead of maple trees, they use birch trees here.
We watched a very informative film that also described the process of tapping trees with tubing attached to a vacuum machine that encourages the flow of sap and gathers it automatically. The average season to gather the sap starts mid-April and continues for only 2-3 weeks.
Then they cook down the sap into syrup that is graded by the date it was gathered. Our free tour included a question and answer time with the owner. He pointed out that maple syrup uses 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, while birch takes 100 gallons of sap to make that same precious gallon of syrup. 
Our tour included a tasting of the different stages of syrup, and then a trip to the gift shop. We were disappointed they were out of birch ice cream, so we bought some birch caramels instead.
After 100 miles on the road, we filled up with $3.09/gallon gas because we've heard that you shouldn't pass too many fuel stations in an RV. Mark had scoped out possible overnight camping spots, and we like the one just south of Denali State Park. It wasn't listed in The Milepost, but we found the turn off to the west into a large gravel area with fire rings and plenty of room for many RVs. Perfect!
We fixed a nice meal in our new RV kitchen, and then headed out on a hike. We took the muddy trail that intersected with our parking spot and made it 1.2 miles before we decided is just too muddy to continue.
We were perfectly content to spend the night in our camping spot, when we saw a pickup enter our area and they stopped to talk to us. They were raving about the "stellar hike" they had taken today just a few miles down the highway. When they mentioned it was on Curry Ridge Trail, we recognized that as one on our list of best hikes in Alaska.
We knew it was supposed to rain tomorrow, and the weather was beautiful right now. Well, all-righty, we left our camping spot and headed down the road towards Denali State Park and Kesugi Ken Campground. The camphost there explained that RVs weren't supposed to park in the $20 tent sites, but he allowed it since we were such late arrivals and we were only here to hike. So we got started on the Curry Ridge hike at 9 p.m.!
We took this picture at 9:30 p.m., so we had plenty of daylight. At the ranger station, it listed sunrise at 4:24 a.m., and sunset at 11:33 p.m. That's 19 hours and 9 minutes of daylight, plus we knew from experience there is plenty of light even after sunset.
As we climbed higher up the ridge, the views got better.
Even though the views of the mountains were great, we were just seeing the "little mountains" this evening. The taller Alaskan range is hidden by that solid wall of clouds.
By now we were watching the rays of the sunset streaming down the mountain sides in the valley below us.
We made it to the top of the ridge, and were taking pictures and were quite happy with our accomplishment.
But Mark kept hiking, intent on the rise in front of us. Sure enough, that was "Rocky Knob," the actual end of the trail. It took some encouragement from Mark to get the rest of us to make another quarter-mile ascent to get there as well. From this taller vantage point we could see the views of the mountains and lakes on the other side of the ridge we had been hiking.
We took a little rest at the top,
enjoying one of the most unique--and latest--sunsets of our lives at 10:40 p.m.
A little before 11:00 p.m., we started the hike down Curry Ridge.
Connie had some knee pain during the climb up the mountain. But she found that the descent was really painful. She tried going sideways, but she found that going backwards was the only way to give her some relief. It was slow, but she went most of the miles downhill backwards.
This slower pace gave Mark and Denisa some time to stop and sniff the wildflowers. While it is still early, we are seeing some flowers on this trail.
While it was getting quite late, we still could see the mountains in the valley below us.
We kept watching our watches, because we wanted to take a picture right at the stroke of midnight. This is what it looks like on the trail at 12:00 a.m.!
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