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Alaska was the 49th State to be officially admitted to the United States on 3 January 1959.

Arriving into Anchorage Airport at 5am yesterday morning the weather very much reminded me of home! I’ll admit it was a shock to the system after Hawai’i! My jeans and hoodie which had been in the bottom of my case since I left the UK were quickly pulled out my bag!

My parents have been to Alaska twice and so when I was looking at doing this trip suggested I add it to the itinerary! Yesterday I had a three hour journey on the Alaska Railroad up to a little town called Talkeetna. The people here call it a town. I’m not sure I’d stretch to that. There is one street. Mind you, I’d not seen any barbers, nail salons or bookies so it’s probably better equipped in Talkeetna than in most of the UK high streets! Due to the size of Alaska, the railroad is the main way of transporting freight. Passenger trains need to give way to freight trains, so there are only certain “passing places”! I took a video of passing the train – this is only part of the length of the train! Apologies if you get the chat from the woman who was sitting behind me videoing it to send to her grandchildren. Asking what they thought would be in each piece of freight and saying “oh look, an empty one” etc. It was a bit odd, I was in a small carriage with I think six others who all were chatting away and so on but when I tried to join in I got nothing back. I keep forgetting how scary someone on their own is! Who knows why I might have done or said! Mind you, I wasn’t that fussed about getting to know the weirdo who kept saying “choo choo” (I was so tempted to say this doesn’t run on steam) and squealing “MOOSE” then “KIDDING”. Possibly mid 50s and no, he didn’t seem to have any difficulties other than being stupid.

Talkeetna is not far from the base of Denali, North America’s tallest peak and is also where the Talkeetna, Susitna and Chulitna rivers all meet. Standing by the river you can’t really see where the river ends, the mountains start and the sky takes over. I stood for such a long time just looking at the vastness before me and the power in that water was unbelievable.