North to Alaska

 Quick note: I’m attempting to include photos with each post but am not sure if the WiFi speed in the ship is fast enough. Fingers crossed!

North to Alaska

Atlanta-Anchorage

September 3, 4, 2022

We’re off to a good start. Our plane is at the gate, we board on time, the Find My app says our luggage is also aboard (Apple must be selling a zillion air tags during this new era of lost luggage). As we’re ready to leave the captain announced that there was construction equipment behind us on the ramp so he has to wait for it to be moved. A few minutes later he came back on the PA to tell us that since we were delayed he decided to load more cargo (Fun fact: 95% of everything used in Alaska is imported so I’m guessing if there’s room, put it on the plane) but now there was a tiny problem closing the cargo door. But then there was a loud THUMP, door closed and we’re off to Anchorage, seven ahours, non stop. Ate a little, read a little, knitted a little, watched the little plane move across the map on the screen a lot. We arrived, luggage arrived, hotel shuttle arrived. We’re on a winning streak. 

Sunday morning Jim and I Ubered downtown with former high school teacher and Anchorage native David. I find myself continually surprised every time we meet a native Alaskan. Many have left for school in the lower 48, only to return. To us this is such a strange and isolated place but to them it’s familiar and, well , home.  

Gas is $4.99 a gallon. 

With just one day in Anchorage and no car, we made a reservation for the deluxe city tour on the Red Trolley. It is  indeed a motorized red trolley, with Alice, a current middle school teacher and Anchorage native, as driver and guide. She’s big and brassy, dabbles in the theater arts, tells jokes and  sings slightly naughty song parodies as we move around town for a couple of hours. She’s funny and informative but I’m sure is more than a little intimidating to her students. 

Besides learning about the city and people, we’re on a moose hunt. There are approximately 1,000 moose living within the city limits. The human residents know the moose has the right of way whether standing in the middle of the street or sleeping on your front porch.  Alice tells us, tongue slightly in cheek, that “There’s a moose blocking my driveway” is an acceptable late-to-work excuse. Along one stretch of wooded area she sees another Red Trolley stopped on the side of the road, a sure sign they’ve spotted something, so pulls in behind and whadaya know, a moose rubbing against a tree. Everyone on the trolley is excited, taking pictures like mad, while I keep asking, “Where? Where?” So I just aimed my phone where Jim pointed and hit the button. He’s in  there somewhere. 

 After lunch of a grilled cheese with crabmeat on sourdough on a brew house roof top (it’s a little brisk, grey skies but the intermittent rain showers have ended), some shopping for quilt fabric, musk ox yarn and a Christmas ornament made by a native artist (years ago I started buying ornaments as souvenirs) we rode back to our hotel with Wilma, one of the first Uber drivers in Alaska and an Anchorage native, to meet our traveling companion arriving that afternoon. Myrta and I met at freshman orientation more years (decades?) ago than we care to admit and have stayed in touch and traveled together ever since. 

Tomorrow, Nome!