Anchorage

 

Wednesday, June 18

Packing up to leave Anchorage after a week.  We extended an extra day because there was a severe weather alert:  a storm was developing in the North Pacific that was forecast to bring high winds and heavy rains to Anchorage and the Kenai Peninsula.  Thankfully, the weather cleared up and we had our first sunshine day on Tuesday!  The storm wound up going east rather than north, so we had very nice weather finally!

No rain and wind or storm!  We get an evening on Ritchie's patio!

Some of us preferred to sit in the sunshine to warm our jackets!

Teddy, on the other hand, is "Cocktail Dog" and wants to be out in anyone's lap at cocktail hour!

Early in the week, we went downtown to go to the visitors information center which is an old log cabin with a grassed roof--very quaint and unusual!

TROLLEY TOUR

We took the "Chamber of Commerce" tour of Anchorage on the trolley.

Our trolley for a quick sightseeing tour of Anchorage

Our driver and hostess was this nice school teacher from Anchorage...she was full of interesting facts and stories
 

Our hostess told us a lot about the big earthquake that so severely damaged Anchorage on Good Friday of 1964.  There is scant evidence of the damage today, but the town was really shaken:  the quake was measured at 9.2 on the revised Richter Scale and lasted 4 to 5 minutes!  Here are some pictures with commentary:

This is 4th Avenue in downtown Anchorage.  The north side of the street--as shown in the picture--dropped one whole story!!  The earth fractured right down the middle of the street and one side dropped into the abyss.  Essentially, the store fronts you see here were the second stories of these buildings after the quake.

This is Earthquake Park on the west side of downtown.  It isn't very clear in this picture, but the woods that you see are growing up from the ravine on top of what once was a residential area.  The land underneath this area liquefied during the quake and the houses all started to slide towards Cook Inlet and then sank as the ground gave way.  It had to be terribly frightening to anyone who lived through it!  There are numerous stories from survivors about how they escaped from crumbling buildings as the ground shook violently.  Luckily, the quake hit at 5:30 pm on Good Friday and not earlier or on a school day.  Several schools were totally demolished and there would most likely have been a much greater loss of life had the timing been different.

This is the high school which was built to replace West High which was destroyed by the quake.  The painting was dedicated by the Class of 1971.  One of the students who worked on it wanted to add an inscription that it was a project of that class, but the principal at the time said, "No!"  So the artist worked a "'71" into the cuff on the left leg of the eagle.  According to our school teacher hostess, it was 5 years after the painting was completed that the principal noticed the legacy!!

Alaska:  land of the private small planes!

According to our tour guide and hostess, flying in Alaska is as normal as driving to the store for groceries!  In fact, some teenagers get their flying license before they are of age to have a driver's license!!  Considering the vast distances in this largest of all the United States, it is perhaps not surprising that 25% of the small, private aircraft in the U.S. are in Alaska.
Anchorage has a large, international commercial airport, of course, but it also has a large municipal airport with hundreds and hundreds of small planes.  In addition, there is another airfield adjoining the largest float plane station in the U.S.--so large, in fact, that the float plane base has its own control tower for taxi, take-offs, and landings!

Just one portion of the planes tethered at the float plane base



Hard to land one of these two on a runway unless it is water!

Note the oversized tires on this plane...definitely a "bush plane" with big tires for landing on the tundra!

Another row of private small planes

 

Airborne from the float plane base...off to some lake out in the wilderness, most likely!

Up to 200 or more takeoffs and landings DAILY at the float plane base.

Obviously, with so many pilots and small aircraft in Alaska, one would expect to see a museum documenting the importance of small planes to the history of transportation in the state.  We went to the Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum which is located at the float plane base--which, incidentally, is just adjacent to the International Airport. 

 

We read about the plane crash which killed Will Rogers and the famous pilot Wiley Post.

The museum was full of interesting artifacts and old planes that played an important role in the state's development

THE SAGA OF THE PARKING METERS

Jack has already commented on the "One Armed Bandits" of Anchorage.  Unquestionably, the parking meters are a puzzle of substantial magnitude for first time users.  First of all, the screens have gray backgrounds and secondly, the instructions are in light black letters, so it is difficult to see what is written.  In fact, at one point, we read an instruction which told us for more time to do something and the "TO DO" was undecipherable!  Here is a series of 3 grown seniors trying to decide just what it is they are supposed to do to get another hour on the meter--for another $1.50!!

 

"HOOORRAHH!  WE DID IT!"

Anyway, so much for the challenges of parking in downtown Anchorage!  We are headed down into the Kenai Peninsula to Seward for a couple of days, then on to Homer for a few days!  More to come as we continue our Alaskan Odyssey!