Healy, where Cindy lived

Cindy worked for 2 summers at Denali Park while in college, after school she moved to Healy, just north of Denali, a few guys helped her build a cabin from lumber at the rail yard, she put in an oil heater , got a dog named Toklat, and she and two other young women in their 20's homesteaded an area of land that was known as "Squaw Point", can you imagine living by yourself and your dog in

minus 50 degrees This was her scenery, she said it was yellow, red and dark green in the fall, white in the winter, and green, green in the spring and summer

Bridge over the Nanana River, extremely windy here, don't know why the Nanana town isn't on the Nanana River but it isn't, it's on the Tanana River

The Denali Park was called Mount McKinley Park when Cindy worked at it, that same judge who got Barnett to change the name of his town to Fairbanks, by offering him a judgeship in his town, also got them to change the name of Denali to McKinley to honor the President at the time, funny, they all lived in the same State, Ohio

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The Denali Park Hotel was built in the 20's, there were budget problems and it wasn't a rustic hotel, but billed as a modern hotel, for 30 years it was barred from the general public and used as recreation for the armed services, it only opened up to the general public in the early 60 and it burned down in 1972, Cindy was there the night it burned down, this is the new hotel, it isn't any where near the old one, they built a visitor center where the old one was, it isn't very ornate, and there were no cars in the parking lot, but lots of Princess Cruise buses, I hope these people don't think they have rooms in the park because they don't

The office for the hotel is the train car, I think I would be pretty upset if I thought I was staying at THE Denali Park Hotel and came to this, I've been to other National Park Hotel's and they are always stately, this isn't

I suppose it cuts down on the problems with permafrost, being smaller and in sections

The Healy Golf Course, this was not there when Cindy was there, all that was there then was a couple bars, couple restaurants, couple gas stations, a cold mining, railroad town

18 hole TUNDRA mini golf course, I guess Black Diamond sounds better than the

Coal Golf Course

This is a new Steak Grill house, I think Healy has finally realized how close they are to Denali and are marketing their town to that clientle

The golf course is really quite big

This is where Otto Lake Lodge was, it was where much of their social life happened in Healy, it was burnt to the ground, when Cindy
lived there, whenever they had fires, there was not much chance that they were going to stop them,

Cindy said that when she lived there that they could tell when summer was over by the flowers left on the fireweed, when the stems were all that were showing, summer was over

The same house was here when Cindy was, the man here sold Cindy a camper to put on her truck when she left Healy for California, $50, everyone put in a dollar at her going away party and helped pay for it, she was going to drive this truck and camper to Colorado to live, from California and it broke down in Reno, that's how she became a Keno writer

Lake Otto, it froze solid in the winter and then they would take their cars and drive across it to see friends on the other side, skidding and making doughnut holes the whole way

Cindy began her Chef career here,at this restaurant, there used to be a KOA campground there

This is the road that you went down to get to Cindy's cabin, it led to the coal mine, and they kept it graded, Cindy would pick up coal on the road that fell off of the trucks to heat her cabin with

This is the roundhouse to repair the trains, there was a big crew that maintained the tracks, it is still there, with many RV's camped all around it

This is our first look at the Healy Clean Coal Generating Plant

They build this generating plant to supply power to Fairbanks, spent millions of dollars putting in the power lines to Fairbanks, and then they are having a squabble about rates and it isn't in operation today

It's interesting that they would paint a coal generating plant white

Looks like a Hawiian Woman laying down

The road in front of where you turn off to Cindy's cabin, not graded now

You can see the coal in the hills, they open mined it

This is the coal mine, it is not in operation now, a family owned it and they shipped many tons of coal to Stewart Alaska, and many more tons to Singapore

The coal that came out of these hills was very low sulphur, that is why it was in such demand, and also why they called it a Clean Coal Generator

The Usibelli family, who owned the coal mine, was one of the first to try to reclaim back the land by planting specially developed grasses, the Alaskan Highways uses some of these same grasses now, that were developed there

This is the drive down to Cindy's cabin, which isn't there now, this was as far as we dared to go, but the doggies went further

I look down and get a sinking feeling, a BEAR!!!!!!

OK maybe a WOLF

Then Gracie goes trotting by and I realize it's a Gracie!

The Healy Airport

The Railyard at Healy

Much has changed in Healy in the 30 years since Cindy has lived in Healy, some for the good, some for the bad, but the scenery is still gorgeous