First thoughts

At 1 am on Sunday, June 6, 2011, we ascended the Palmer Fishhook Rd through the Talkeetna Mountains. I had arrived at the Anchorage airport around midnight, and Matt Weaver was there to pick me up. It was somewhat dark outside—though not dark enough to see stars—the darkness aided by the drizzle and cloud cover. As we took the turn past the abandoned Motherload Inn, we began a rapid climb through the mountains. We entered the clouds and visibility fell to only a few feet. Within moments we were above the clouds, the valley and the road we had just traveled, obscured below us. Off in the distance, we saw a set of lights. “That’s the big house, where you will be staying,” Matt told me. Up to this point, I still thought I was staying at Matt’s residence in Palmer—as he had told me in a previous email. He seemed so excited to meet me, he was very talkative and outgoing, I thought maybe he just wanted to play tour guide for a while. We entered the gate and drove another ¾ of a mile to my new home, the ghost town called the Independence State Mines Historic Site. Matt helped me unload my gear, showed me to the house, and by 2 am I was alone in a ghost town in the middle of mountains.