Another hour's drive further north
put us back in Anchorage, home to 270,000 and a place many Alaskans
decry as "Los Anchorage." They do have a point, what
with the haphazard sprawl, rush-hour traffic snarls, big-box stores
and look-alike subdivisions on the edge of town. Still, we found
much to like in Alaska's largest city, including the neon-splashed,
pedestrian-friendly downtown; a wealth of good restaurants; and
lots of prim, leafy neighborhoods straight out of Middle America.
And again, the people were unbelievably friendly.
The city also has several standout attractions, like the Anchorage
Museum of History and Art, which provides a great overview of life
and times in the 49th State, and we enjoyed several hours here the
following day. The Alaska Gallery was especially memorable with
its fine assortment of oil paintings and photographs. I thought
the rendering of Mt. McKinley, painted by renowned Alaskan artist
Sydney Laurence, was worth the price of admission alone. A welding
engineer by trade and a lover of all things industrial, Glenn was
in pig heaven as he perused the extensive exhibit on the Trans-Alaskan
Pipeline.
I'd stoke my passion for flying machines that afternoon at
the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum. The name aptly sums up the
place, with a worthy collection of bush planes filling a hangar-sized
exhibit hall, joined by assorted model aircraft and hundreds of
glossy old black-and-whites from the state's early aviation
days. It was a short drive from here to Lake Hood, purported to
be the busiest seaplane base in the world, where we watched a dozen-plus
planes come and go within a half hour. We'd stretch our legs
again at Earthquake Park, the city's largest greenbelt, with
miles of trails and bike paths fronting the Cook Inlet. This was
not such a nice place back on Good Friday 1964, as a series of plaques
explained, recalling the 9.2-point temblor that sent a huge swath
of liquefied earth sliding toward the bay. Where that ooze stopped
is now the site of the park.
That evening we patrolled the Fourth Avenue tourist strip, where
Glenn picked up some last-minute gifts among the dozens of shops
that line these downtown blocks. For dinner we went to Humpy's
Great Alaskan Alehouse, a lively joint that overflowed with a mostly
young and fairly restless clientele. At $19 for my seafood salad
and microbrew, it was no bargain but fell well short of the horror
stories you hear about astronomical Alaskan prices. It was after
10 p.m. but still plenty light out when we hoofed it back to our
hotel. Even here, almost 400 miles below the Arctic Circle, it never
got completely dark at night, fading to a deep-blue twilight in
the predawn hours, and summer solstice was still three weeks off.
The next morning I drove Glenn to the airport, where we shook hands
and parted paths. Next stop for me was Denali National Park as my
travels continued to the north, while Glenn boarded his flight back
to Los Angeles. His adventure was ending all too soon, but the memories
will surely last a lifetime. Two weeks later as I walked through
my front door, the phone rang almost on cue. It was none other than
Glenn … eager to hear about the rest of my trip, but also
to relive our week on the Kenai. It would take a while, having explored
a slice of land that captures the essence of a state known as "The
Great Land." |
