December 9-12, 2006
December 9th
We set out on a 8am plane for Anchorage, with a short layover in Las Vegas. We had amazing luck with all our flights are got on to all of them, which was anxiety-fulled because we were flying non-res (or standby). We arrived in Anchorage as the sun was beginning to set, which is roughly 4pm in the winter. During the winter months average daylight is about four to six hours. During our few days there the sun normally rose around 9:30am and set around 4:00pm. However, the sun never rises above that far into the sky because of the tilt of the earth. During the summer months the sun is up for about 20 hours on average. On the summer soltice the sun stays up for 24 hours, which our CS hosts told us prompts bars to stay open 24 hours. Basically, it's treated like a huge party. After some slight trouble with getting our rental car we were off onto the snow-covered roads. Surprisingly, the weather is not as bad as many think. On average it was between 15 and 35 degrees Fahrenheit during our stay but there's virtually no windchill. The roads were fairly clear but most were covered in packed snow. We headed off to visit our Couch surfing host, Gracie. Her sister came over shortly after we arrived and they took us to a Mexican restaurant down the main road. The food was decent, even though we ended up getting burgers, and after dinner Gracie and Brittany took us on a tour of downtown Anchorage. They showed many of the main tourist attractions as well as provided us with Alaskan information and answered all of our questions. We learned quite a few things from them:
- Eskimo is a derogatory term - Native is a better choice
- 1 in 5 people that visit Alaska never leave
- West View is not a good area of town
- Most cars in Alaska have studded tires
After a tour of downtown, Gracie headed towards South Anchorage to give us a good view of the mountains. Gracie attempts to change lanes and a car in her blind spot honks it's horn. Gracie pulls back into her lane but the van starts to fish-tail and eventually we end up doing a 180 into a ditch. Scary experience but everyone and the car was okay. Her brother came and helped us out and we were back on the road in 20-30 minutes. The car that we almost hit actually stopped and helped us get out as well. Yet another example of friendly Alaskans! We headed back to Gracie's and met her room-mate Hellen and some of their friends. They decided to take us out and try to see some moose, however we failed miserably.
December 10th
We woke up early and headed down towards Seward. The 2-hour drive consisted of beautiful mountain along Turnagain Arm. We stopped dall sheep high along the mountain cliffs and the mud flats that are visible at low tides. Girdwood, a small town made of retired hippies and winter sport enthusiasts, was along the way to Seward. We made a short stop there but the town was still asleep so we drove by the crazy post-modern houses and continued our journey. After some scary road conditions on one of the mountain passes we decided to continue and not turn around and were rewarded with clear roads shortly. We arrived in Seward, which is a main port of cruise ships and whale/glacier tours, and explored the deserted docks for a bit. We then headed downtown towards the Mount Marathon. In the summer a drunken race is performed up and down Mt. Marathon. Racers run full speed both ways, eventually ending bruised and bloody at the base. Here's a YouTube video of some kids that hiked up the the top: here - just in case you want an idea of how steep and high the climb is. We decided to go into the Sealife Center, since the town was pretty much dead considering it's far into the off-season. There we saw many of the native animals and discovered that puffins don't look like the puffins you see on television, they look like small black ducks. We stopped for lunch at a Chinese buffet called Peking on 4th Ave. I highly recommend it to anyone that visits Seward in the future. On the drive out of town we spotted a kestrel and bald eagle, just hanging out in trees along the highway. The drive to Anchorage was uneventful but the view makes it an amazing drive. Back at Gracie's, she and Hellen made us moose tacos. Tasted very similar to beef! After dinner, Chris and I decided to head towards Earthquake Park and try and spot the Northern Lights. Not even 3 minutes after arriving, a cop came up and made us leave the park - since we had planned to leave for Sterling the next morning early to take a dog-sled ride we opted to just head back to Gracie's.
December 11th
We woke up early and headed down towards Sterling. About 30 minutes into the drive I remembered that the receptionist for the sled-dog kennel had said she'd call if the snow wasn't deep enough. Sure enough, a voicemail was on there saying that because of the warm weather and small snowfall they couldn't take us on a ride. We decided to head to Girdwood and explore there again. The same highway takes you to Sterling and Seward, also eventually Homer if you follow it long enough. We checked to see if the Mt. Alyeska Tram was open but it wasn't so we headed back to Anchorage. We started to head north towards the "Valley" to get a better view of Mt. McKinley. However we decided the drive was too much and turned back around to explore downtown Anchorage some more. Gracie and Hellen recommended a few restaurants to us and we decided to go to Snow City Cafe, which is popular among the 20-something crowd apparently. After eating we took at drive back to Earthquake Park for a distant view of McKinley and the Cook Inlet. We drove a bit farther and stopped at "The Bluffs" and took a walk around the infamous Alaskan mud flats. Brittany has told us that once a woman was stuck in the mud and they tried to pull her our and ended up ripping her in half. Awesome. In our case the mud was frozen over and safe to walk on. We enjoyed the sunset and take the chilly, windy walk back up top. We headed back the Gracie's and played a finally game of Trivia Pursuit. We tried to see the Northern Lights again but we aren't sure if we saw them or if it was just a haze in the distance - what we saw was similar to this picture but a great deal lighter. We said our goodbyes to Hellen, Gracie and Sweet-Sweet (their cat) and headed back to the airport. After nine hours in the air and an hour layover in Pheonix we were back on the smoggy East Coast.
Along Turnagain Arm
Still along Turnagain
Sunset on the mud flats
