Catching Up Before Denali

After several weeks of constantly moving, dodging rain, hiking, and photographing Alaska, I decided it was time to slow down for a few days and get caught up before the next part of the trip. Next week I'll be spending a full week in Denali National Park, and after that I'll begin the Fairbanks portion of the journey. Instead of packing every day with another destination, I've been using the time to organize photographs, work on the website, and simply recharge before things get busy again.

Every day I've seen this bull moose somewhere along the local road. Sometimes he'd be browsing quietly along the shoulder, other times he'd be standing right in the middle of the road as if traffic didn't exist. Most of the time he moved at a slow, almost lazy pace, but every now and then he'd suddenly trot or break into an awkward-looking run without much warning. It was a good reminder that, despite their calm appearance, moose are completely unpredictable. They may look relaxed one minute, but they're capable of covering ground surprisingly fast the next.

Working from the Talkeetna Library

I've spent quite a bit of time working from the Talkeetna Public Library, and it has turned out to be a perfect place to spend the day. The building has a large stone fireplace, plenty of windows that fill the rooms with natural light, reliable Wi-Fi, and very few people. It's quiet enough that I can sit for several hours without distractions, yet it never feels isolated or stuffy.

One thing that surprised me was the photography section. They have an excellent collection of books covering landscapes, composition, printing, and the work of many well-known photographers. Every once in a while I'd get up to stretch my legs, pull a book off the shelf, spend a few minutes flipping through it, and then get back to work. It's a great little library and one I probably never would have discovered if I hadn't needed a quiet place to spend the day.

One book in particular caught my attention: Portraits from North American Indian Life by Edward S. Curtis. I was already familiar with Curtis and his remarkable photographs, but I had never come across this book before. I found myself lingering over page after page, for a few hours, of beautifully reproduced portraits that captured Native American life more than a century ago. The expressions, clothing, and incredible detail in the images made it easy to forget how old they are. It wasn't the kind of book you casually flip through in a few minutes—it was one I could have happily spent the entire afternoon with.

A Quick Trip to Wasilla

I needed to pick up a prescription, and one nice thing about CVS is that they'll transfer a prescription to almost any other CVS in North America. There are only a handful of locations in Alaska, and the closest one was in Wasilla, about a 90-minute drive from Talkeetna.

Wasilla is one of those towns I just can't quite figure out. It's mile after mile of strip malls, big-box stores, chain restaurants, and shopping centers that all seem to blend together. In Anchorage that kind of development makes sense because it's the state's largest city. Here, though, it feels oddly out of place. From what I've learned, many people choose to live in the area because they can buy several acres of land and build a home while still being within commuting distance of Anchorage. I can certainly understand that part, even if the commercial side of town doesn't really appeal to me.

After picking up my prescription, I found The Great Harvest Bakery and Cafe that served soups, salads, and sandwiches. There aren't any Panera Bread locations in Alaska, and this place filled that niche surprisingly well with top quality food. It was a nice stop before making the drive back to Talkeetna.

The other thing that stood out was the traffic. Route 3 through Wasilla has what feels like a permanent traffic jam in both directions. It seems to be the result of a town that grew rapidly around the main highway connecting Anchorage and Fairbanks without the road network ever really catching up. Once you're outside of Wasilla, traffic quickly returns to what I've come to expect in Alaska, making the congestion through town feel even more out of place.

Cleaning Up Six Years of Photographs

I spent a lot of time going back through nearly six years of photographs, deleting weaker images, reorganizing folders, updating keywords, and identifying photographs that might deserve a place in the galleries. It's amazing how much your eye changes over time. Images I thought were outstanding several years ago don't always hold up today, while others that I barely paid attention to now stand out as some of my favorites.

It's slow, repetitive work, that won’t be done in a few days, but every now and then I rediscover a photograph I had completely forgotten about. Those little surprises make the whole process worthwhile and remind me just how much ground I've covered since I started this adventure.

Finally Getting the Galleries Working

For the past several weeks I've also been trying to build a proper Galleries section for ottwheels.com. Since the website runs on Squarespace, I assumed it would be a fairly straightforward project. Instead, I found myself constantly adjusting layouts, categories, navigation, and page organization without ever getting things to work quite the way I envisioned them. Countless times, I would do something that would break other parts of the website. I would get close, but never close enough to be happy with the results.

While I was sitting in the library, it occurred to me that maybe I was approaching the problem the wrong way. Instead of continuing to fight with the website, I wondered if ChatGPT or Claude could simply help build it. I asked Claude what it recommended, and it suggested installing a Chrome extension that would allow it to inspect and interact with the page directly. After installing the extension, I spent about thirty minutes writing a detailed three-paragraph description explaining exactly how I wanted the Galleries page to look and how visitors should move through it.

Then I let it go to work. Close to thirty minutes later it had reorganized the page and produced something that was remarkably close to what I had been trying to accomplish on my own for weeks. I spent almost no time clicking through menus or experimenting with settings. Instead, I mostly watched it build the page while I sat there thinking about what was happening. As someone who spent fifty years writing software, it was both fascinating and a little unsettling. My immediate reaction was, "This is very scary what just happened."

Friday Night Pizza

Friday evening I decided it was time to stop working and enjoy a good meal, so I drove over to the Flying Squirrel Bakery Café just outside Talkeetna. I arrived around 5:30, and before long the place was packed, mostly with locals, which is usually a pretty good sign. I ordered one of their wood-fired Italian-style thin-crust pizzas along with a local stout, and both were excellent. The crust had just the right amount of char, the toppings were simple and fresh, and it turned into one of the better pizzas I've had for a while.

Before leaving I wandered over to the bakery counter and spent a few minutes looking at everything they had made that day. There were shelves full of artisan breads and baked goods that looked every bit as good as the pizza. If I find myself back in the area, I'll definitely make another stop there.

Travelers from Italy

Back at the boondocking spot where I've been staying for the past five days, I met Sara and Paolo from Italy. We ended up talking for quite a while, and they were simply fun people to spend time with. One of the best parts of traveling like this is meeting people whose lives have taken them in completely different directions, yet somehow you end up parked beside each other in the middle of Alaska.

Their journey has been incredible. They drove from Italy across Russia into South Korea before spending an entire year exploring Japan. After that they shipped their vehicle by container to Vancouver and are now making their way through Alaska before continuing south through North America. Eventually they'll cross the United States and head back to Italy from the East Coast. We compared notes on Alaska, exchanged travel stories, connected on Polarsteps, and promised to follow each other's travels.

Since then I've been watching some of their YouTube videos. I especially enjoyed the series they filmed while traveling through Japan because it focuses less on tourist attractions and more on everyday life, small discoveries, and what it's really like to spend an extended period exploring the country. If you'd like to follow along with their adventures, you can find them on Instagram and YouTube as @Vandipety, or visit www.vandipety.it.

Rethinking the Arctic Ocean

A few nights ago I met another traveler who mentioned that he was heading to the Arctic Ocean. That caught my attention because I had planned to drive the Dalton Highway all the way to Deadhorse. He explained that instead of driving, he was flying to Deadhorse and then taking the shuttle bus back to Fairbanks. As we talked, he shared several stories that matched things I'd already read online about flat tires, broken windshields, and breakdowns along the Dalton. Much of the road is gravel, and the heavy truck traffic can be tough on vehicles, especially tires.

That conversation stayed in the back of my mind for a couple of days while I researched every option I could find. This morning I called Deadhorse Camp to make sure they had a room available when I wanted to travel. They did, and they also explained how to reserve the Arctic Ocean tour. Everything seemed to be coming together until I asked about taking the shuttle bus back to Fairbanks on Wednesday. I had read that it operated on Wednesdays and Sundays, but the woman on the phone apologized and explained that the Wednesday bus wouldn't be running that particular week. The next available southbound shuttle wouldn't leave until Sunday, and I had no interest in spending four extra nights sitting in Deadhorse.

That meant it was time to rethink the entire plan. Wright Air never returned my phone call, so I checked Alaska Airlines and found that the Saturday flights were already sold out. Friday still had seats available, although the trip isn't direct. I'll fly from Fairbanks to Prudhoe Bay by way of Anchorage, turning what could have been a short flight into about four hours of travel. Once I had the flight booked, I called Deadhorse Camp again to reserve my room and then booked the southbound shuttle bus back to Fairbanks. It leaves at 8:30 in the morning and arrives around midnight.

I also reserved the Arctic Ocean Shuttle through the Northern Alaska Tour Company. From everything I've read, it's less of a sightseeing tour and more of a security escort through the restricted Prudhoe Bay oil fields so visitors can actually reach the shoreline of the Arctic Ocean, something you can't do on your own. Once I've completed the trip, I'll write up the entire experience, including the flights, hotel, shuttle bus, tour, and whether I think flying north and riding the bus back was a better choice than driving the Dalton Highway (I’m sure it was).

Looking Ahead

For now, I'll continue organizing photographs and finishing the new galleries on ottwheels.com. Tomorrow morning I'll head north to Denali National Park, where I'll spend the next week hiking, cycling, photographing wildlife, and hopefully meeting up with people I met at the gravel pit in Talkeetna. Hopefully, I’ll be getting a few clear views of Denali before continuing on to Fairbanks for the next chapter of the trip.