Anchorage

 It's the end of week four of this marathon trip, with four weeks to go (or maybe more, if I really need them) and I'm having trouble believing that it's half over. There's so much more on my list – Homer, Seward, the Top of the World Highway, and the list goes on and on.But this first photo was taken on the way to Anchorage from Denali. It was at one of the roadside turnouts that are frequent in some of the very scenic areas of the highways. This was my last view of Mt. McKinley. 

Anchorage has turned out to be a fascinating city. In so many ways it's like most other bigger cities – with all the usual amenities.  Costco, Target, McDonalds, even a military base that I can use for commissary trips. But in many ways it is very different too.  First are the mountains on one side and the water on the other. There are lots of one way streets, and this weekend has been one of street closures all over the place for various events. When you don't know a city, and you are faced with one ways and closings, it sure makes driving a challenge. This is also the only city where I had to go through metal detectors and then get wanded (because of my artificial knees) to get into a tourist information center. That's because it's in a Federal Building, and everyone has to go through security.  I made sure I got all the info I wanted while I was there, because I didn't want to go through that again!

I finally made a list of all the things I wanted to see in the city, so I could keep track of where I had been and where I needed to go. One of the most important things was to find the finish line for the Mayor's marathon on Saturday. The daughter of a friend from church was running in the marathon and I wanted to be at the finish line to cheer her on. Turns out that the park where the finish line was located was the original airstrip for the city of Anchorage back in the 30's or 40's.  It is only about 100 yards wide, but goes for many blocks – guess if I had really thought about it, I might have figured that out, but instead I read it in one of the guide books. Judy and I met up at the finish line and we were there to cheer for Shawn when she finished – and I think we were the only ones from New Mexico!

My list included the Alaska Native Heritage center where I took a tour of the facilities (free!). It made a whole lot more sense to me listening to the guide than it would have if I had just gone through on my own. The guide was a young native (Yupik) girl who was fun to talk to as she showed us through the dwellings of the different cultures of Alaska natives. Other events at the museum were a demonstration of Native Games and another of Native Dancing. It turns out our guide was one of the participants in the games, and watching how they performed gave me a whole lot of respect for the strength and flexibility and balance required to survive in wilderness Alaska. That's the purpose of the games: to keep the people strong during the long winters, as well as to entertain themselves and each other.  Can you imagine the strength required to do these things?  (Kick the ball with one or both feet – the ball being 5 or more feet high – and then land on your feet.)

The native dances were also a lot of fun to watch, and to hear what they represented. I loved the costumes, made of fabric store materials, but made to simulate the materials they would normally be made of. Each costume was made by the person wearing it, or a relative of theirs. The beadwork was often their own, and was beautiful. I ended up spending about 4 hours there, wandering through the exhibits, watching the performances, and going back through the village dwellings.  

Another big thing on my list was the Anchorage Museum of Art and History. This is a huge, very modern looking, facility right in downtown Anchorage. The art was lovely, but what really captured my imagination was the history section. There were displays of different kinds of dwellings, from a gold miner's cabin to a settlers homestead, fur-covered shelters, and many of the different kinds of boats that were used for fishing and transportation. Some displays were of carved ivory or other material, delicately beautiful bears, otters, seals, and other animals. There was painted, inked, or carved ivory, scrimshaw, utensils made from animal horns, bowls of wood and birch bark and grass, and all these were the best of the best…. I wandered from gallery to gallery and back again, looking at various things, then catching sight of something across the hall and going over there – until about 3-4 hours later my stomach said it was time to leave and find something to eat!! 

Another exhibit at the museum of Art and History was of tide pool creatures, and you could touch them!  I've been an enthusiastic tide pooler ever since I lived in Hawaii, and the chance to see these critters, and actually touch them or pick them up (a pincushion anemone, a starfish, a Christmas anemone, a King Crab) was right up my alley. 

Another thing on the list was parks – I wanted to see several of the parks in the city, and Sunday was park day. 

Earthquake Park had displays about the 1964 earthquake that destroyed much of the city, especially along the coastline. It also had the most fearsome infestation of mosquitos that I've seen on this trip!  I had started down the path and gotten about 100 yards down, when I realized that I was going to be miserable without more bug spray. So back at the car I drench my hat, sleeves and smeared it all over the exposed flesh, and back to the park! (Good thing I brought 2 bottles of bug spray with me! Some places have been out of it, the demand has been so high!)

This afternoon was special too. I met up with a facebook friend that I had never met face to face. Cathy and I spent a couple of hours at a coffee shop just chattering away about our shared love for the books of Dana Stabenow (and other things). Those books are what got me started imagining this trip, and Cathy is one of the managers of a group called the Danamaniacs on Facebook.  

After I left Cathy, my last stop was the Botanic Gardens – fun to see Alaska wildflowers, although not all of them were in bloom.  But this huge rock (called a glacial erratic, meaning that the glacier dropped it far away from where it originated) was a big feature of the garden, along with these lovely flowers (all of whose names I can't remember, and I didn't bring my flower book). 

I think these are chocolate lillies.

A glacial erratic.

The last event of the day was probably the most needed. On the way back to the campground from the gardens, I saw a group that was doing a car wash to raise money. Oh boy, my car was filthy and the front was crusted with dead bugs.  They did a great job on the car, and it was the best $20 I'd spent in a while!! So now I have a clean car to start the week – I wonder how long that will last!

An example of some of the bugs -- this one was still alive.  Eeew. 

 Upcoming -- the Kenai Peninsula -- first up is Homer.