A Day In Anchorage

For our first day we decided to stay in the Anchorage area. Lots to do while we were here. The city is more modern than I anticipated and very clean.

We started off the day by checking out a close by park, Kincaid, where we got a few nice pictures. We had a view of mount Denali. A spectacular sight. By road the mountain is a few hours away.

Then we moved on to the Anchorage museum of natural history. $18 bucks a person and it was very well worth it. Liz and I played around in the discovery section, an area for tactile learning. I did jump and stay in the air for .01 second longer than Liz could do. We were fascinated learning about the native population which is something we’ve never learned through either of our educations. We watched a video of a celebratory dance coined eagle wolf dance, where native populations come together to celebrate, share stories and values, and network.

Feeling hungry we drove up to the Far North Bicentennial park to get closer to the mountain range. We ended up checking out a bunch of housing further up the mountain. It looked like an HGTV episode; million dollar houses with a priceless view of Anchorage. We tested our stove and newly purchased fuel by questioning whether or not we could heat canned food, while still in the original can. Answer is yes it’s warm, but it tastes like metal, so scratch that. While cooking we had a few of Anchorages finest searching for a couple vehicles on the non-motor vehicle part of the trails. Seems they came up empty handed. Liz made her first meal successfully using our portable burner!

During the early evening hours we visited the Eklutna historic park where we spoke to a tour guide about the peculiar area. This was a Russian Orthodox Church mixed with native assimilation. In the flint picture you will see small houses which are spirit houses for the deceased, standing only a few feet high. The ceremony has changed throughout the years taking hints from the Russian and native combination.

We ended the day going to Beach Lake. On our way there we drove around a residential lake that had residential housing with private planes sitting on the water, presumably lifting off and landing within the lake. Pretty bizarre. There are small planes everywhere! Seems like a qualification to live in Alaska is to have a pilot’s license.