End of Stay in Anchorage

It's late in the afternoon on Thursday. This is the last day in Anchorage. We actually planned too long here; two days would have done instead of three. But since Wes didn't arrive on Monday, it is to our advantage that we had the third day to give him a second day here.

Wes did arrive on Tuesday night after more flight problems. He got to Houston too late to make his connecting flight. They booked him on another flight through Seattle which he took. He didn't make it to the hotel until about 2:15 a.m. Wednesday morning. Flights from Texas are long and get you here late!!

After leaving the library on Tuesday, I took a trail that took me along a running creek and then along the coast of the Cook Inlet. It was a beautiful day with bright sunshine. I stopped at a park and watched people playing. There was a disk golf course (Frizbee golf) along the way, and I watched college students playing that sport. The air was cool, but the sun was warm. It was a great day to be out. By the time I got back into town and to my hotel room, I had been walking about 6 1/2 hours and had traveled many miles. It was 33 blocks south of my hotel to get to the library, then the trail took me to the far western edge of downtown on my way back to my hotel on the far eastern edge of downtown. I was tired.

I covered much of the same territory again yesterday with Wes. We started with a walking tour of downtown. I had seen most of what we saw, but this time, I read the commentary to learn more. We saw where the Iditerod Dog Race begins. We saw the street that was split apart in the earthquake in the 60s. We saw sculptures scattered around town. Etc.

We walked to the south of downtown to the New Sagaya Food Market for lunch. It is an Alaskan version of Whole Foods. They have wonderful choices for prepared foods and places both indoors and outdoors to eat. We each had lasagna. We also sampled macaroni and cheese which is a popular item here in Alaska. Finally, we had a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. Then we did more walking. We took the trail along the creek and back around to the western side of town by Cook Inlet. We were both exhausted when we got back to the hotel--me from having walked so much two days in a row and Wes from having done it all with little sleep during the night.

We ate dinner last night at the same place where I had eaten dinner on Tuesday. There just aren't a lot of places open in the downtown area in the evening. It's a popular local place called the Lucky Wishbone with the slang title by the locals of The Bonz. It specializes in fried chicken and burgers with the chicken being flown in unfrozen every day and the burgers being made from the leanest of beef. Tuesday night, I had a chicken sandwich. Last night, we each had a burger and fries. Then we each had a cornmeal muffin with butter and honey for dessert.

Wes went back to the airport last night to pick up our rental car. We had purposely held off on getting it until then because we knew we would be walking in the downtown area at first. Today, however, was planned for our day to explore suburban Anchorage with the need for transportation. Since the hotel has a free shuttle to/from the airport, it was no problem coming to the hotel and then returning on another date to get the rental car.

We started this morning by going to the Muffin Man for a warm muffin. I had the pina colada while Wes had the blueberry banana. Both were good, but we had somewhat expected them to be even better.

Our main outing today was to go to the Alaska Native Heritage Center. It's a museum and demonstration center operated by the native peoples of Alaska. We watched a dance performance, went through the indoor exhibits, stopped by tables where natives were selling their arts and crafts items and discussed them with them, toured the outdoor exhibits, and watched a film and heard some storytelling inside the theater. It was an interesting place. As explained by the guidebook, the real advantage of it is the people. They do not seem like professional guides or ones who have tired of what they are doing. Some were quite shy. And their presentations were flexible and fresh sounding. The ones at the oudoor exhibits were my favorites--showing the various styles of housing, explaining how the people in their native places made a living and lived their lives, answering questions about it all, etc. I especially enjoyed the exhibits of the sod houses--built of wood and partially underground with all exposed areas covered with sod. It was also nice to be able to handle all the cultural items they showed and deomonstrated and to touch all the various pelts of the animals that they caught and used in their lives. We pulled fur off a moose hide. We felt of wolf, fox, beaver, otter, seal, etc., skins.

It was 1:30 p.m. by the time we left the museum. As we took a different route to downtown to have dinner, we passed a Costco. I had my card with me, so we stopped and ate lunch there. I was surprised that here in expensive Alaska, they had the usual Costco polish hotdog and cola special for $1.50. Hotdogs downtown cost $5!! While there, we also sampled all the items offered by the ladies and men at the sample carts. And we bought some muffins, colas, trail mix bars, and chocolate to have in the car as we travel for the next few days.

Tomorrow, we leave for the Kenai peninsula. It will be harder for me to make it to computers in the coming days. But it will be exciting being in the wilderness and seeing that aspect of Alaska. Will blog when I can.