Alaska Part III , trip day 2; July 3, 2018Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment. —Evan Hardin

After we wrapped up our amazing aerial tour and glacier landing, we were starving, so we were off to find some local grub. Downtown Talkeetna, here we come. While it was 9:30 in the evening, Main Street looked like it was maybe 6:00 or 7:00 PM. People were just sitting down to eat at the many places we drove past, and parking was almost nonexistent. Brinn identified a spot right in front of the Denali Brewing Company, so that’s where we pulled in to eat. This probably ended up being my favorite eatery during the entire trip. I had the ribeye sandwich and it was pretty amazing. The place had a cool vibe, and the energy was fun and festive. This little town reminded me so much of Boone, NC. A little touristy and a lot earthy.

We wrapped up an enjoyable dinner on the deck by recounting our amazement with flying through the mountains and walking on a glacier in sight of Denali. We all passed our phones around the table to ooh and ahh over the images we were able to snap from the air. Ian hugged on Steele, munched on a few fries, half a grilled cheese, and began melting into a puddle of tired little boy. So we jumped back in the Sequoia and began our trek to Healy to continue along the longest day of our lives.

My driving directions indicated that we should expect the drive from Talkeetna to Healy to take about 2ish hours. Ha! We probably got back on the Healy Spur around 11:00 PM. Keep in mind that it is still looks like 7:00ish PM by Tennessee standards. At this point we have been awake since 5:00 AM, and have failed to experience darkness yet. My research promised that there would only by 22 hours of daylight, so we must be getting close to dark, right? Again, just kidding! By 22 hours of daylight, my sources must have meant full-sun daylight, because it never seemed to get any darker than twilight.

We drove and drove, and drove some more. Mount Denali loomed in front of us, then eventually to the side of us. For hours we drove, bemoaning the fact that we couldn’t have stayed in Talkeetna. Wouldn’t that have been a great idea? Except I’d already made reservations in Healy for that night and rafting reservations for the next morning. So we soldiered on to our destination. The shadows grew a little longer, and eventually I had to set the font size a little larger to read my kindle comfortably, but full darkness never arrived. We drove past the most breathtaking scenery of my life, but around 1:00 AM I just lost the energy to care. And then we drove some more.

Finally we arrived to our cabin on Otto Lake. We trudged into our cabin, located beds, crawled under covers and crashed. The last thing I remember saying was “the only person allowed to wake me up is Ian. We are not getting up with Eastern or Central Time zones.” So finally, the longest day of our lives ended. It’s just too bad Grandpoppa continued to function on Eastern Time…