So daughter and her boyfriend are in town for the week. Trying to figure out what to do on a day when the weather is kind of drizzly. Daughter says she wants to go to Talkeetna, she loved it when she was there a few years ago and my favorite pizza place does gluten free crust. That’s a necessity now since she has been diagnosed with Celiac’s.

So we head up to Talkeetna, it used to be a funky little Alaskan town and was the inspiration for Cicely in the show Northern Exposure. Sadly I’d forgotten how much I’ve grown to hate Talkeetna in high tourist season. There’s a train stop there and a lot of tourists get off the Alaskan Railroad and wander about town, tour buses also drop off by the metric shit ton there and the way to and from Denali. All of the on street parking has been eliminated and designated, “Pedestrian Trails.” Trails? Bullshit it’s the gutter! A lot of the small shops and galleries that sold authentic hand made Alaskan artwork are now seasonal t-shirt, stickers and moose nugget souvenirs. Just what we needed more of.

So drop the kids off outside Mile High Pizza Pie and go try and find a parking spot since street parking is now eliminated to placate the hordes of zombie tourists. Boyfriend takes a step up and asks what I want and says it’s on him me since I drove. (He’s scoring points on this trip). I go park in the mud down by the river in what used to be the riverside park before Mother Nature had other ideas and the river eroded away the bank. Walk back to the restaurant, kids found a table, but didn’t order drinks. They preferred to use the filling station and their own water bottles. WTF? You can’t just drink water with pizza, especially when the pizza place serves fountain drinks in tall red textured plastic glasses, this crime against humanity and pizza must be corrected. No problem I’ll get that.

So get in line and I have one Indian (Kwikee Mart not Casino) family in front of me at the counter. I’m stuck behind this family of several adults and children for over 20 minutes. All kinds of questions about the menu that they can’t figure out. Really? It’s a pizza place, it’s not that difficult, it’s not like you’re trying to provide technical support on why your streaming service won’t interface with my Apple TV.

Then the demands start. Demanding that their vegetarian pizzas be cooked on separate pans from any that may have contained meat, that the pizza cutters not only be washed but sterilized before they’re used on their pizzas. By this time the line to order stretches behind me the length of the restaurant, out the front door, off the covered porch and into the rain.

Then the asshole whom I assume was the leader of this walking advertisement for retroactive abortion sent back his draft beer because the foam on top was, “2cm too high.”

I ABSOLUTELY LOST MY SHIT!

“Dude, get over your entitlement bullshit attitude! Either grow a set and suck up your extra 2cm of beer foam or set it down on the counter and get the fuck out!”

Really shocked look.

“In my country…”

Cut him off right there.

“This isn’t your country, here we have respect for others which you need to learn. You’ve inconvenienced me and everyone standing behind me, you need to move along.”

“In my country…”

Cut him off again.

“There’s two types of countries in the world, those that have put a man on the moon and those that use the metric system to measure their beer foam. YOU NEED TO MOVE ALONG!”

That earned me a rather dumb look as he shuffled off leaving his wife deal with the bill, she couldn’t figure out tap to pay and required a lot of assistance.

I step up to the counter with my 2 bottles of Henry Weinhard’s black cherry cream soda and order a fountain Coke. I start to apologize to the hostess and to my surprise she runs around the counter, gives me a big hug, thanks me and says my drinks are on the house.

Then I get back to the table and get an earful from my daughter that I shouldn’t be so mean to tourists.

We stopped in Talkeetna on our first trip up there. Utter tourist trap, didn't feel the need to return. Intentionally avoided it on round two, and don't plan to go anywhere near it this summer, either. Kind of like a lot of areas around National Parks here in the lower 48.

Yeah, I'm technically a tourist, complete with the camera and backpack, but after watching hoards of tourists getting herded off of a ship and on to trains and busses in Whittier, I'm determined to never partake in that type of travel. Yeah, our creature comforts weren't quite the same as theirs...I had frost in my tent a couple of mornings, had to deal with the bugs and devil's club, and had to avoid piles of bear shit when setting up camp a couple of times, but at least we had the freedom to go where we pleased, when we pleased, and do what we wanted on our own timeframe.


I also have pretty stringent dietary requirements (type 1 diabetic on a strict low/no carb routine), but I find ways to make do with what's on the menu and am not an asshole about it. On the rare occasion that I go to a restaurant rather than making my own food from a grocery store, I find something on the menu I can live with, and if I end up with something on there that I can't eat, I just take it off. It actually really frustrates me to have to do that, because I'm not a picky eater...I grew up cleaning my plate of whatever was served, and wish I still had the biological ability to do that without sending my blood sugar skyrocketing. Watching some whiny asshole kvetch over special-order stuff on a menu (especially when they're holding up everyone in line behind them) really pisses me off to no end.

Ugh, we encountered these exact types up at the winery when we went for brunch.

A whole family (around 8) of them all dressed like they were in Calcutta, acting like they were the highest cast and ordering the wait staff around, demanding a table that was reserved for another party while one of them was carrying a small dog around wanting to go see the buffet with it.

I would have LMAO if I had been there in person.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
We stopped in Talkeetna on our first trip up there. Utter tourist trap, didn't feel the need to return. Intentionally avoided it on round two, and don't plan to go anywhere near it this summer, either. Kind of like a lot of areas around National Parks here in the lower 48.

Talkeetna is a gorgeous setting, the river, views of Denali, and the surrounding mountains and woods. It’s just sad to see what the town has declined into.

It used to be the town was a jumping off point into the Alaska bush with businesses and outfitters catering to that crowd. Some of that is still there but you really have to look hard for it. The outdoor gear shop with all of the climbing and camping gear is long gone.

Used to be a lot of small galleries and often times the artists themselves were the ones behind the counter. Always good conversations with them about their art, techniques and what inspired them. Now it’s mostly t-shirts and trinkets. At least Aurora Dora is still there. She has made a business off of photographing the northern lights, has a gallery and even leads tours now. Then there’s the food trucks now that could be from anywhere. There’s still the places to eat that make Talkeetna unique; Mountain High Pizza Pie, Talkeetna Roadhouse, Denali Brewing and the Spinach Bread Trailer, but the food trucks not so much.

I’ll still go up there in the off season, it’s an entirely different vibe and actually fun. I think this is the last time I’ll go up there during high tourist season.

Talkeetna was nice to visit in May and September when the weather was nice and before/after tourist season.

My favorite tourist joke that I occasionally saw printed on a t-shirt from my 5 years living in Alaska

ALASKA BAG LIMITS:
Moose: 1 per season
Halibut: 2 per day
Tourists: What is the limit?

I had a few tourists tell me that Anchorage wouldn't have all of those nice restaurants and hotels if it weren't for tourism. Since I both work in oil & gas and was active in the Anchorage Economic Development Council, I gleefully told them that Oil & gas was 90% of the Anchorage's economy and if it weren't for year around oil & gas money spent there that Anchorage's restaurants and hotels would look like Tok, Alaska (i.e. combination gas station, convenience store, and diner with a handful of rental cabins out back).

quote:

Originally posted by 2000Z-71:
“In my country…”

Cut him off again.

“There’s two types of countries in the world, those that have put a man on the moon and those that use the metric system to measure their beer foam. YOU NEED TO MOVE ALONG!”

Epic! Though I would have substituted the beer measuring with, "...and those that would defecate and bathe in the same body of water."