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Arrival
Well the
first disappointment was a 4.+ earthquake in nearby Talkeetna as I was picking
up luggage shortly after 11pm in the really cool Anchorage terminal and I
didn’t even feel it.
August 31,
2017
At sea level,
Anchorage is surrounded by mud flats and mountains. I expected it to look like
the black and white photos I remember from the 1964 earthquake – black and
white and bleak and muddy. It doesn’t.
The view to
the east out my hotel window is mountains and green and attractive buildings.
Sydney had to
go to work. David and I poked around Anchorage a bit, which is beautiful.
Fire
Island Rustic Bakeshop, where one of the bakers just won a James Beard award,
was our lunch stop.
We hiked
partway up Flattop Mountain in Chugach State Park, a 20 minute drive from David and Sydney's place.
It was small trees, scrub pine and shrubs for a bit but tree line is low because of the latitude.
There were a couple of
blueberry pickers down in the valley. The autumn color and the rain clouds
coming in across the water and city below, and eventually across us, made for a
beautiful afternoon.
Twenty well
outfitted hikers from Holland and Belgium were waiting for their vans when I
returned to the hotel for dry clothes. They were headed home after 22 days
hiking around the state. There are a lot of tourists and one Anchorage neighborhood
is the most ethnically diverse census tract in the U.S. Eighty languages are spoken
in the schools.
When Sydney
got off work, we visited a local brewery and then met her boss and his wife for
dinner. They are smart, interesting, and delightful people. You can see two of
the many sides of her boss at the following sites.
David brought
me a tiny box of exquisite chocolates from Mexico where he recently visited Ken
and Ingrid. I saved the Buddha to eat last.
We are headed
to Denali National Park tomorrow so if I can’t post tonight it may be next
Wednesday.
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