Alaska - Day One
Saturday, May 19, 2007
What happened in Anchorage?
Well... I suppose we can say that the first day really started the night before. As the flight from Seattle took off, it was dark out. The further North we went, however, the brighter it got. By the time we landed in Anchorage, it looked like twilight. In fact, after two nights here, I’ve yet to see the sky look completely black. Ahhh...Summer in the 49th!
So anyway, I get my rental car (upgraded since they didn’t have any compacts - complete with auxiliary plug for my iPod!) and headed out for the hostel. The 26th Street Hostel is located in a neighborhood called Spenard, which, evidently, is Eskimo for hooker. It’s in a house and when you walk in there are travelers from all over the world just hanging out. I meet the owner, who sets me up in a room, and then I proceed to also hang out for an hour or so. I talk to several people about various things and we never exchange names. It’s like a vacuum where the only thing that exists is the adventure itself. Certainly makes me rethink all those D&D adventures where we started out in the Tavern looking for trouble.
So on Friday morning, I’m up and hitting Anchorage with a vengeance. 9am and I’m at the museum, checking out a new exhibit on Native Art as well as a whole thing on the history of the state. 10:30 I board a tour bus and get a glimpse of the city sights. After that, I wander around on my own a bit, get a reindeer sausage, then decide to hit the zoo.
The zoo wasn’t great, but I did get charged by a Musk Ox! Seriously! The musk ox was just standing there and when I walked up to take a picture it decided it didn’t want that so it charged at me. And yes, I know it was me since there was no one else there. And he did it a few times. Weird!
Then it was dinner at a place called the Sourdough Mine, which I can certainly see as the kind of place you go for your birthday when you’re twelve.
After this long day, I figured to just go back to the hostel and hang out, maybe get to sleep early. But first, a stop at a local bookstore with a cafe with fast wireless access.
So I stop in and I’m looking around for a plug and these two girls (Brittany and Grace) graciously offer me their table (which is the only one in the place near an outlet). As a thank you, I offered to buy them a cup of coffee so then we ended up talking and they were going to party and I got kidnapped into going.
It was fun! We ended up at Brittany and Russell’s having dinner then off to Kate’s for the party. There I met Ivan, who plays guitar in an eskimo/funk band and Finn, who also married a freaky woman too quickly (the difference is that in his situation HE is the Brit). Got to bed at 2:30am... not bad considering I had to be up at 7 for the trip to Fairbanks...
I didn’t drive all this way, I flew, but I wanted you to see where it was.
