Best/Worst places in interior Alaska?

I always tried to avoid 4 Street in Anchorage and 2 Street in Fairbanks. Or is that the other way around? Been a long time.
 
What don't you like about 4th Street in Anchorage?
 
I liked Telketna. The Road House has good food and the tables are set up so that you don't get your own. It makes for some good conversations. When I was there, a dog was sleeping in the middle of the main street and all the traffic just drove around him. Some grandmother had just shot a brown bear that was trapsing through her backyard in town. There are alot of climbers getting ready to go up McKinley. You can find them up any tree in town or climbing the sides of buildings.
 
One Short said:
I liked Telketna. The Road House has good food and the tables are set up so that you don't get your own. It makes for some good conversations. When I was there, a dog was sleeping in the middle of the main street and all the traffic just drove around him. Some grandmother had just shot a brown bear that was trapsing through her backyard in town. There are alot of climbers getting ready to go up McKinley. You can find them up any tree in town or climbing the sides of buildings.
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Pizza joint there is pretty good too. The aviation museum is worth a walk through. You can also get a scenic flight around McKinley there too.

Kennicott/Mcarthy is interesting too.
 
I hear tell Wasilla is a great town. You can even see Russia from there.
 
There is a Road House on the Richardson that has all you can eat sour dough pancakes that are to die for.

The "Food Factory" in Fairbanks has great subs and when I was there 250 variety s of beer.
 
I don't know much about AK, but this looks like a pretty good place to be:
 
Why are all the places I listed having to do with food and alcohol. Sounds like a pattern is developing
 
tmyers said:
There is a Road House on the Richardson that has all you can eat sour dough pancakes that are to die for.
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No food is to die for. Think about it...
 
I remember a particular motorcycle trip from south of Fairbanks to Valdez. Stopped and had 9 of those pancakes then got on the bike and continued south. That particular stretch of road is very rough. Those pancakes started mixing in a most uncomfortable way. I thought I was going to explode and would have surely died.
 
Driving from Anchorage to Fairbanks there had not been a rest stop in hours, The Beer I had in Anchorage was pressing really hard to get out. Seeing a wide spot to pull out I decided to stop and let the beer out, and found there had been several thousand folks there before me.

Really yucky mess
 
tmyers said:
The "Food Factory" in Fairbanks has great subs and when I was there 250 variety s of beer.
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We loved the Food Factory, it was good food! Watch out for their fried zucchini, it is bad hot. I bit into one and the breading broke off from my hand the scolding hot zucchini seared my lip and chin. My reaction was to grab and throw. Not sure where it went but it had my wife cracking up.

I was in the Air Force up there at Eielson and we maintained some heaters for the Chinooks based at Fort Wainwright. So they took us up on a flight and took us to Telketna. We were all in our BDU's and we were booed at and people were being rude. One establishment that served food would not even let us in. We finally found a friendly place but to this day I do not understand why they were like that. Oh well...
 
Big Bob started with his first Food Factory store near the UA Fairbanks campus. Little hole in the wall that would only seat about 20 people. That was in 1980, and by the time I left in 83 he had three restaurants. I think the only one left is the biggest on across from the Fred Meyer.
 
tmyers said:
Big Bob started with his first Food Factory store near the UA Fairbanks campus. Little hole in the wall that would only seat about 20 people. That was in 1980, and by the time I left in 83 he had three restaurants. I think the only one left is the biggest on across from the Fred Meyer.
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I left in 2002 and I remember the big on in Fairbanks and I want to say there was a small one in North Pole as I lived down the road from it.

Yeah I lived in North Pole. It made for interesting topics for post marks when I sent stuff home.
 
Well, living on the base, the closest town was the booming metropolis of Moose Creek LOL
 
I dropped some guys off at the front door of a bar on 2 street in FAI and drove around back to park. Before I got parked the three of them are running out the back door yelling don't stop we got to get out of here. There were definitely some folk hostile to we with the short hair.
 
OMG. Forgot about the Moose Creek Lodge.

And that's all I have to say about that
 
The beautiful town of Anderson. (corrected) it's off the beaten track between Denali and Fairbanks.
 

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Never been to Baker but would love to play in the snow with those snowcats
 
Valdez was my favorite place. Small, beautiful, and Valdez heli camp for those that like to snowboard and ski. The helicopter pilot was crazy! That was an awesome time. Or cheena hot springs.

And white water rafting at Denali. Cold water and you have to wear dry suits but a blast! I wish I did much more while up there.
 
Used to go to Cheena Hot Springs to thaw out the bones.

Girls softball tournament in Valdez was a particulate treat.
 
Tom-D said:
The beautiful town of Baker.
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Many Colorado mountain towns without ski resorts look similar when not covered in snow.

Rural towns east in the flatlands away from I-70 and I-76 aren't looking so hot these days either. If they ever did.

My mom did a photo essay / video on the old church building in Osgood, CO where she visited family friends as a child. We don't have it online anywhere but it's eerie. The prairie eats small towns. The building is rotting in place, the piano is on its back in the main room full of bird's nests , windows are mostly broken with the eerie few stained glass windows still intact since the vandals apparently thought better of shattering those, chairs left in odd places and then pushed around the place by prairie windstorms, etc. Amazing how well the building structure has fared and the hardwood floors.

This guy does some photos also and appears to be slowly documenting the ghost towns of the plains as a hobby. The Osgood church is mentioned but not seen. He has some other fascinating shots though.

http://users.frii.com/uliasz/photoart/lost_colorado/east.htm

The images of Keota, CO are probably the most beautiful and eerie in his collection. Water tower still standing. Fire hydrants in the middle of grasslands. Concrete staircase to the high school that closed in 1951, now leads to nowhere, old church with the bell tower torn off by prairie winds.

Rural life isn't for folks who want pretty earth-toned suburban subdivisions with perfectly manicured lawns and HOAs that ticket offenders, that's for sure.
 
denverpilot said:
Many Colorado mountain towns without ski resorts look similar when not covered in snow.

Rural towns east in the flatlands away from I-70 and I-76 aren't looking so hot these days either. If they ever did.

My mom did a photo essay / video on the old church building in Osgood, CO where she visited family friends as a child. We don't have it online anywhere but it's eerie. The prairie eats small towns. The building is rotting in place, the piano is on its back in the main room full of bird's nests , windows are mostly broken with the eerie few stained glass windows still intact since the vandals apparently thought better of shattering those, chairs left in odd places and then pushed around the place by prairie windstorms, etc. Amazing how well the building structure has fared and the hardwood floors.

This guy does some photos also and appears to be slowly documenting the ghost towns of the plains as a hobby. The Osgood church is mentioned but not seen. He has some other fascinating shots though.

http://users.frii.com/uliasz/photoart/lost_colorado/east.htm

The images of Keota, CO are probably the most beautiful and eerie in his collection. Water tower still standing. Fire hydrants in the middle of grasslands. Concrete staircase to the high school that closed in 1951, now leads to nowhere, old church with the bell tower torn off by prairie winds.

Rural life isn't for folks who want pretty earth-toned suburban subdivisions with perfectly manicured lawns and HOAs that ticket offenders, that's for sure.
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For many people when you work hard for every thing you own, every thing has value, and nothing gets thrown away.

Compound that with being hundreds of miles away from the store, you keep and use every thing over and over.
 
Tom-D said:
For many people when you work hard for every thing you own, every thing has value, and nothing gets thrown away.

Compound that with being hundreds of miles away from the store, you keep and use every thing over and over.
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Yup. Grandparents were that way. Great Depression kids. Totally understand.

They don't see the stuff in those photos as "junky". That's just the local Ace Hardware.
 
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