Anchorage, Alaska

It’s dreary out when we get up and looks like it could rain any time, but by mid-morning it’s not raining, so we head over to Anchorage’s Saturday Market, which is an open air market that they have on the weekends. Some interesting crafts there, but we get through all the stands with only spending $5 on a Christmas ornament (I collect Christmas ornaments from places that I travel to). Then we decide to splurge and eat lunch at a restaurant with a view of the Cook Inlet, Snow Goose Restaurant. Jere has a muskox steak sandwich and I have a caribou burger….Joe has chicken strips. Joe is not an adventurous eater.

After lunch we head over to the Anchorage Art and History Museum

and spend two hours looking at the exhibits. We learn a lot about the Eskimos, the Aleuts, the Athapaskans, and other native tribes found in Alaska. There are 13 tribes in Alaska and they each have their own corporation, instead of casinos as in the lower 48 states. The native corporations are given preference for government contracts and at the end of each year the corporation gives each of its’ members (I think they need to be at least ¼ aboriginal) a check. This arrangement has something to do with the hunting lands that they lost due to the oil pipeline and payments for the right-of-way due to the oil pipeline. From what I hear, the one tribe gave each of it’s members almost $50k a few years ago. We also hear on the news that each Alaskan, native and non-native, is expected to receive $1500 this year from investments due to the oil companies. Alaska also has no sales tax or income tax – the oil companies must be paying a lot of taxes to the state of Alaska.

Anyway, after the museum we walk through town to head back to the trailer

and pick up our bikes to head out to the Coastal Bike Trail again. We ride several miles to where the bike path bends around the end of the Anchorage Airport main runway. When we were here 13 years ago, we brought our daughters to this spot and got a kick out of how the jets take-off directly above your head. However, this time Jere and I look at each other and say “Dockweilers”. Dockweilers is the campground that we stayed at in April at the end of the LAX runway. Having planes take-off above our heads is 'no big deal' since we had jumbo jets taking off above our heads at LAX about every ten minutes.

We get rained on briefly, but by the time we bike back the sun in trying to shine.

After dinner Richard and Sally, come over and we spend the evening talking. Around 10:30 pm we realize how late it is (the sun is still shining; sunset is around 11:30) and say our good-byes.