Boondock–
We left Talkeetna last night after dinner. Got some gas at $4.20/gal. reg. It is a bit of a shock when we find $4.20/gal. a “great” price! We’ve put 6700 miles on the motor home since we took off from our daughters house in San Diego and headed north. Along the way out of Talkeetna we were pleased to see other RVers were boondocking along the way. Found a pull-off and spent the night. Getting pretty good at sleeping despite the near round the clock day light. Expected to see a moose wandering around since it looked like prime moose habitat but no such luck.
Willow–
We knew Willow, Alaska was small but wow was it small. There isn’t much for the tourist to see but it is certainly lush there. It does have an airport and it seemed many houses had stacks and stacks of firewood and sometimes a plane in the yard. The next little town along the way was Houston, Alaska but it was so small it didn’t even show up on our map. At least Willow is on the map.
Wasilla–
It turns out that Wasilla has become a bedroom community for Anchorage and is the fastest growing town in Alaska. It is still low in population compared to places in the lower 48 but you can see it is busy and appears to be sprawling with lots of big box shopping centers.
We stopped here to see the beginning of the Iditarod Race Trail. Went to the Iditarod Race Trail Headquarters and enjoyed spending time in their museum, seeing some displays, visiting some of the sled dogs and watching a couple of films about the history of the race. The race “starts” in Anchorage as a celebration but the official starting place is Wasilla. Chatted for awhile with the son of the “Father of the Iditarod” and owner of the Headquarters property. His dad took his young family and homesteaded in Alaska from Oklahoma in 1947. He was saying the “old” Alaska was better. He thought Alaska was getting too crowded now!
It was a rainy day in this part of Alaska and I think the temperature only got up to about 50 degrees F.
To answer your questions…Yes, we looked. No, you can not see Russia from anywhere in Wasilla.
