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We rolled into Talketna, Alaska in the evening, just as shadows were starting to become a little longer and the sun was getting a little lazier.

Being a proper road trip, we did not have a place to stay yet, which made dad a little more nervous than me probably. Dozens of times while vagabonding I have rolled into a town or island with no idea where I would put my head…and miraculously things always seem to work out. (and if not, there is always the bus station )

Talketna is a tiny town with one main strip. You can stand at one end of the main road and see the other end of town. There are a couple of guide services, a tackle shop, a few small diners and places to eat, and the Susitna river flowing by carrying its gray volcanic silt from the mountains. It is also the type of place that you WANT to find while you are vagabonding….despite being small, it was full of positive energy and chilled out people. The town is used as a base for people climbing McKinley in June and July, we had only missed climbing season by a few weeks, so things had not really shut down yet. After hitting a busy hippie pizza place and eating outside, our next mission was to find a place to sleep. There was a hostel in the center of town that was booked, but the nice older woman named Pat allowed us to sleep in the detached bunk house for $25. Perfect!

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I felt the line go tight in my hands and gave it a sharp but jerk which proved to be too little too late.

About 5 feet from the boat an enormous rainbow trout, even larger than the one I caught last year, jumped straight up out of the water, cleared its full body length, and came back down with a splash. It had been after my bead that I was fishing with. A very close miss on a record fish…..damn! If I had not been in the presence of two other grown men, I probably would have cried.

We started the day at 05:00am as planned, but for various reasons did not make it into the water until around noon. I spotted one moose standing in knee deep water, but he never looked my direction. (For being such large animals, sometimes I think their brains are out of proportion.) The shore just past the boat launch was covered with “combat fishermen”…those without boats that stand almost shoulder to shoulder and cast out hoping to snag a salmon. The poor salmon are running a gauntlet of hooks and lines, trying to reach their birthplace to spawn and die. It seems like this would be tough on the fish, but it is actually a good thing – I would rather someone get to eat them than have them die in vain and end up food for the gulls that keep a close watch above us.

Luckily for us, we drifted right past the fishing gauntlet and down one of the prettiest rivers in the country (or world, in my opinion) – the Russian River on the Kenai Peninsula.

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Somewhere in the midst of my sleep induced head bob that was kinking my neck, I peeped out the window at the low cloud cover hanging over Alaska. I watched intently until the layer of cotton started presenting tears, through which I could see the land that stole my heart the first time around. In short flashes, I could make out the cold gray volcanic peaks with milky snow laced all over them. My heart began to beat harder, it took me an entire year to make my return, but I was finally back.

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