June 12, 2018

Here’s to 50

This is our first “Big” trip in a number of years—three to be exact.  We’re off to Alaska for three weeks of driving around and seeing the sights.  We’re not exactly sure why we are doing this.  There is no burning desire to see a moose, bear or mountain goat.  We’ve done that.  Mountains and Oceans?  Sure, that’s always nice.  But Alaska has been on our list for a long time and perhaps we have forgotten why or how it got there in the first place, but now that it has risen to the top we are on our way.  Based on dozens of conversations we have had, we’ll find out why we want to go when we get there.

Then there is the 50-state thing.  We have been to the other 49 multiple times.  As Mary has said we might be going just to tick the box.  Our expectations are really much higher than that, but what the heck, the box will be checked. 

Our first day did not start as expected.  We had an off-the-clock Uber driver scheduled for a 4:45 am pick up to get to the airport.  At 4:50 we called both numbers we had for him with no answer on either.  At 5:00 we cranked up our Uber app which for some reason would not let us get past the payment screen.  An advantage of living downtown, we hustled the three blocks to the front of the Hyatt and grabbed a cab.  No harm done.  We later received a text from the original driver that they were late at the hospital with an injured son and couldn’t make it out of bed for the pickup.  It’s always something.

There were a hundred people in our TSA line at the airport.  Really, there was a guy counting.  We are using miles for the front of the plane, so we skirted around to the preferred check in where there were five people in front of us.  Our question: “how can there be a hundred people in line at 5:30 am on a Tuesday?”  Unbelievable.

We had a 757 to Seattle and then a 737 to Anchorage.  Both flights were about three hours and it was 13 hours total from our 3:30 wake up in Minneapolis to being in our room in Anchorage at 1:30 local time.  Not bad.  Our Uber failed to work again—we have to find out what the problem is—and we took a cab from the Airport to our downtown hotel.

The cab driver told us that over half of the population of Alaska lives within 50 miles of Anchorage so there is a lot of open space.  Anchorage itself has a population of about 300,000, about the size of St. Paul without Minneapolis attached to it.  It is not as vertical as St. Paul.  The architecture is low slung and boxy.  It feels sort of western like a Sacramento.  About half of the downtown seems to be surface parking lots which have basically been banned at home, so it feels like there is a lot of sky.  The streets are very orderly with numbered streets going one way and lettered streets going the other.  We are at the Voyageur Hotel on 5^th and “K”, a boutique hotel that was once independent but is now owned by the larger Captain Cook across the street.  Our room is spacious with four actual chairs, a king bed and small kitchenette.  There is a manager’s cocktail hour in the afternoon and breakfast in the morning—very civilized.  Most of our fellow lodgers are cruisers who arrived on a bus and will take a train to Denali or be bussed back to their ships.

We need to move around, or crash and we opt to move.  Anchorage sits on a northern arm of the Cook Inlet with downtown on the water.  It’s a few block walk for us downhill to Elderberry Park on the shore.  We are a little taken aback by the quarter mile of mud and muck that leads out to the water until Mary wisely says, “it must be low tide.”  Ah, we Midwesterners.  We join a few others sitting in the park and looking at the water with the mountains in the background.   It’s 59 degrees and the folks in the park are in shorts and t-shirts and a couple have shirts off soaking up some sun.  Someone suggested we bring warm clothes.  We said in Minnesota we just call them clothes, but this is pushing it a little.

We walk for 15 minutes along the water past a large freight processing area.  It looks like freight arrives by tug and barge. We move back up the hill into the other side of downtown and work our way back for nap time.  We’re proud of staying up until now and we have to be alert for the Manager’s reception.

The reception is a quiet affair.  There are a few cruise/tour folks hanging out and discussing their plan to have their luggage in the hallway at 6:00 am.  This may appeal to us someday, but we aren’t there yet.  After a couple glasses of wine, we decide we will check out the casual bistro, the Whale’s Tail, at the Captain Cook across the street.  We have no ambition for a big salmon or halibut dinner and are looking for a snack and beer.  Two new things for us:  We must show ID to get into the restaurant (you have to be 21 to enter any place that serves alcohol); and they have a self-serve wine bar.  You buy a $10 card at the bar, shove it into the machine and pour yourself a 2 ,4, or 6 oz. pour.  They have a Caymus cab for $12, $24, and $36 respectively.  We skip the wine, get a couple local beers and split a burger and order of pretzels with cheese sauce.

We pull the shades but try to stay up as long as possible to get on Alaskan time.  Sunset is at 11:30 and sunrise is 4:30. We don’t last long but have made a little progress on our time adjustment.

The news today:  A local city politician when discussing a land deal in the works said, “The citizens of the city are going to take it in the shorts.”  She is obviously the heir apparent to Sarah Palin.