Last month Mike and I visited the final frontier. It's my longest blog yet, so I'm splitting it into two parts for all y'all's sake.
WEDNESDAY - June 20th
I was pleased to find that Alaska Airlines did not subscribe to United's sardine-can philosophy of airline seating. I was also thrilled (after having the last two plane trips be cross-country) that our journey would be just a single hop of about 3.5 hours.
This was the view from the plane of the icy landscape that awaited us. A frozen, barren wasteland upon which we would survive by harpooning whales and making endless sno-cones with the Torani syrups I had brought with me.
Buuuuuut….in the hour between me taking the picture and landing in Anchorage, global warming reached its tipping point and the surface temperature had escalated to about 75 degrees. The landscape awoke from its long chilly slumber and out sprung grass, trees and townhouses (this being the view from the camper that was our bedroom).
No kidding, my friends, the first two days in Anchorage brought sunshine and mid to upper 70s. I even returned with a tan I did not have before (insert a "Baked Alaska" comment here - I am too sophisticated to make such a joke).
Our arrival was trumpeted by the ritual making of Buffalo Wings by my Dad - a favorite of mine every summer I would visit as a youthful sprite. The late afternoon and evening were spent catching up after four years since the last visit (and seven years since my Dad and stepmother had first met Mike). During the chat (which involved the ever-present neighbors - you know how sitcom neighbors drop in all the time? This was the same thing, only without being funny in the slightest), it was discovered that there were four-- FOUR -- gay couples living within a block in the townhouse complex. We had unwittingly stumbled upon the gay district of Anchorage. The fact that my Dad lives in this gay recruitment zone and has a bichon frise for a dog are not the least bit interesting compared to the story that was told of him and Kathleen visiting "Mad Myrna's" (Anchorage gay-friendly bar) and my Dad attempting to solicit another man to dance with him. After several attempts the guy finally says "Sorry, but I'm straight." To which my Dad responds "No shit? So am I - that's my wife over there."
Sacked from the day of travel, we stayed up only late enough to see the literal "midnight sun" but not late enough to watch the sun flirt with the horizon, dive down for just an hour or two and pop right back up.
THURSDAY
Our first full day in Alaska dawned warm and sunny. Mike visited the Anchorage Police Department just to see what their recruiting spiel might be (don't fret, folks - it was a distant, distant, DISTANT notion to begin with that we'd ever pick up and move that far away - this was basically for entertainment value only) and was not given a very good song and dance, it seems.
We chose this gorgeous day to make our excursion an hour to the south to Portage Glacier. Well. Portage Lake, rather. There used to be a glacier that covered the whole lake. Then there used to be a lake with a whole lot of glacier in it. Now it is basically a lake with a glacier on the horizon that occasionally dispatches chunks of ice toward the visitor center so that tourists (us) may "ooh" and "ahh" appropriately. When we visited, there was one (singular, one) lovely chunk-o'-ice sitting picture-perfect by the visitors center. I am thoroughly convinced that at this point they are sending some unlucky schlump up to the glacier to knock off a piece of ice now and then, so as to provide pictures like the following. In ten years they will be importing large blocks of ice from some factory in China while tourists (us again) sip Mai Tais on the newly famous Portage Sand Dunes.
The visitors center was free and had a few nifty exhibits, including this bear:
But, Mike is afraid of bears. So he paddled away quickly.
Post-Portage, we made our way to Alyeska: ski-resort in winter and apparently paragliders' paradise in the summer. This is a notable ski-resort in that base elevation is all of 250 feet, with the view from the top (where the tram deposits you) at about 2500 feet. Air temperature was somewhere in the 60s, so it was of course a fun photo-op to show shorts 'n' sandals in the snow that remained on top.
But who cares about my stinky feet when there are views like this to consider?
We watched as a paraglider set herself up and we captured this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AcYLR6PP-A4
We made our way back to town - it was finally time for us to go a huntin'. The game? A Moose. A Moose's Tooth, that is - Anchorage's best pizza joint. However, we were sidelined and forced to go to the Bear's Tooth instead, as Matisyahu was playing an outdoor concert at the Moose's Tooth and the place was packed. The Bear's Tooth would fit right in here in P-Town as the complex was reminiscent of a McMenamin's. One portion was a café where pizza and other casual fare was offered, another part of the complex was a slightly more upscale southwestern grill & the crown jewel was the theater-pub. It must be the only one in town as it was gushed about like it was just the cat's pajamas. "A theater!" they said…"A theater with tables!" they continued… "A theater with tables where you can order real food … and watch a real movie!" In spite of my mockery of the locals, I will say that the pizza was quite good. It is very Schmizza-like, which is a positive thing in my eyes - but with a better crust.
FRIDAY
This day was our day of redemption for the endless gluttony that defined our trip (take note that this is a running theme in my vacations). This was the day we had chosen to bike the Anchorage trail system. In spite of Anchorage largely being an auto-oriented wasteland (the fine folks of Fairbanks call the city "Los Anchorage" - in return, Fairbanks is called "Squarebanks."), there is a beautiful and comprehensive bike trail system. Very few actual bike lanes can be found in the city, but a lot of trails parallel the major roads and two notable greenways cross the city with numerous tunnels or overpasses at most roads.
The weather decided to commend us for working on our fitness by cooling the temp to about 60 for the day. The downside being that it was cloudy and the mountains weren't out. My Dad drove us to pick up the bikes from his gracious friends that were lending them to us and we took off from the southwest corner of the city down the Campbell Creek Trail. These are all paved trails, mind you, we were not out to test our extreme skills (that we don't have) in the mountain wilderness. But Anchorage had other things in mind for us…
We reached a point in the trail that was to be the site of a "future crossing." To continue the trail we were forced down to the creek itself to traverse its slippery rocks. Here it was everyone! This was our true Alaskan experience - we were offroading it, baby, with four lanes of freeway and four lanes of frontage road above us!
Back to the paved trail we looped up to the university/hospital district. Every time Mike and I walk down 23rd Avenue in Portland Mike insists on pointing to Legacy Good Samaritan and proclaiming that this is the site at which he was birthed. Finally, proudly, we biked up to Providence Hospital in Anchorage and I was able to say the exact same thing! Yes, it was as anticlimactic as it sounds.
We were now on the Chester Creek Trail, which was a much busier bicycling/jogging thoroughfare. Possibly because there aren't huge creek-fording gaps to navigate like the Campbell Creek Trail. But, just because this was more peopled and going through a more urban part of town doesn't mean that we didn't continue our Alaskan experience. Off ahead of us a moose galloped across the trail and into the brush. He then stopped in the trees and posed for the full 30 seconds it took me to get my camera out and snap the picture and he promptly disappeared afterward. Should I be worried that the Anchorage Visitor's Bureau is sending out slave moose in cleverly timed intervals to delight the visitors? That or an expertly crafted audio-animatronic. You decide:
This trail hooked up to the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail, which takes users from downtown Anchorage, past the International Airport (VERY close to a runway) and on to a large system of trails in Kincaid Park. We first went north toward downtown Anchorage. Again, the mountains weren't out to play, so it's not the prettiest picture of Anchorage.
We then went back south and made it to the International Airport before making the decision to get back to the house - which was on the far side of town. Thus began our pure in-city biking experience. Generally pretty good - bike corridors in town are basically just wider sidewalks posing as "multi-use trails." In the end we had biked at least 25 miles. To celebrate our healthiness we gorged on homemade Linguine with Clam Sauce.
Stay tuned: Saturday through Monday to come soon! Comments welcome in the meantime!
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