Our first excursion in Alaska was partially covered with the summit flight and glacier landing and given how big of an experience it was I left out the other half of our day that included a brief stop in Wasilla, a nice lunch in Talkeetna, post summit drinks in Talkeetna, and several discovers…

Discovery 1:  In our car we quickly found that one of our passengers is perhaps the biggest admirers of Sarah Palin and he was consistently lobbying throughout the trip for the title of Chief Palin Apologist.  Mike was as giddy as a school girl when he realized that we were going through Wasilla.  If you look at the photo close enough you can see that Mike was taking a photo of the first sighting of Wasilla on the navigation system.

Perhaps the biggest smile of the trip from Mike, even bigger than when his wife crossed the finish line, was in this photo in front of Mrs. Palin’s hometown sign.

Discovery 2:  It was also in Wasilla, in a mad dash to get the picture in front of the sign before Mike passed out, that Melanie proved how great of a driver she was ON BIKE PATHS.  Somehow she managed to mistake the bike path for a frontage road and quickly made a left and kept on driving until we got to the sign.  In all fairness, it could have been the shrieking coming from Mike in the back seat that had her disoriented, fortunately there were no police around.  There are no images available for legal reasons.

Discovery 3:  When a construction worker tells you the road will be shut down for 30 minutes, they really mean only about 15 minutes and when you wave for Andrea and Mike to come back up from exploring because the road is now open you apparently have to tell Mike that you are serious otherwise he will continue to walk at his slow pace.

Guilty construction worker who happens to be a female in below photo.  By the way, it would appear that all road crews had a female assigned to work the signs.  No sexist comments implied.

Here is Mike at his leisure as we are all hustling to pile back into the car.

Discovery 4:  Mike is pretty damn quick when he sees the five cars in front of us start to move.

Discovery 5:  Don’t believe the “Photo Stop” signs in Alaska.  This was our first day exploring the great state and with Melanie at the wheel she saw a sign that would lead you to believe there was a photo opportunity ahead and so she pulled over.  Here is what we saw:

But we decided to take pictures anyway because the sign said so.

Fortunately a plane passed by so it wasn’t all a waste…that is if you enjoy a good plane picture like I do.

Discovery 6:  The Gillum’s camera, while awesome, is intricate and time consuming when trying to set up the timer in order to take a self-portrait.  Fortunately, thanks to a sharp learning curve, they were able to cut the process down from 10 minutes to 2 minutes after only a few tries.

The results, despite Mike looking erect, his words not mine; I do believe was quite worth the ten minute wait.

Discovery 7:  The best pizza in Alaska is in Talkeetna…across the street from where we ate lunch…and ordered pizza.

Discovery 8:  The local beer is INCREDIBLE!  After the summit flight the girls were so fired up they completely forgot about my Achilles injury and crutches and decided it was time to go on a hike and so they dropped Mike and I off in town at the local brewery to sample the local fare and sample we did.  I can’t remember the exact number of varieties, but there were at least 15 different types of beer brewed in the building right in this tiny little town and Mike and I did our very best to sample each one of them.  To be fair, they had a paddle with smaller glasses where you could sample each kind so it’s not like we were drinking a pint of each kind, but then again we may have taken a few trips through the sample platters.  I will say that by the time the girls got back I no longer needed my crutches and Mike was in a battle with the Solstice.

Discovery 9:  The Solstice can play tricks and do battle with your mind.  It is “dark” for maybe two hours of the night and that is usually around 2am and even then it is more like dusk and not dark.  Needless to say if you are sitting around having a few malt beverages it is 10pm before you know it and you have forgotten that you should eat.  What Mike didn’t realize is that the solstice will still create shadows.  I still don’t know what he meant, but he was pissed as he exclaimed his displeasure “The damn solstice keeps casting shadows.”

Discovery 10:  The ride back to Anchorage is so much shorter if you have been sampling Talkeetna’s finest brews for several hours…they help serve as a sleep agent.

(Editor’s Note:  You cannot see Russia from Wasilla, but Palin never made this claim.  She only claimed that you can see Russia from Alaska which is true from one of the far reaching western islands.)