Anchorage

When I left Phoenix on Tuesday, June 23, it was over 110F (43C).  When I landed in Anchorage, Alaska, at 1 am in the evening, it was about 60F (15C).  I've been in Anchorage for 2 days and the high temperature never got above 72F (22C).  At times I had to wear my jacket because of the wind.

Anchorage is the first stop on this Alaskan trip.  This will be my base.  I am using the first day of the trip to gather information about the other parts of Alaska that I planned to go.  Although I was able to get a lot of information from the internet and tour books, I was hoping there is place in Anchorage where I can pick up brochures and talk to a live person.  As soon as I landed I was able to pick up a lot of brochures at the airport.  On the first morning I went downtown and found the Anchorage Visitor Center.  This is a great place to get information on Anchorage itself and the surrounding areas.  However, they directed me to a building across the street that has all the other information about the entire state of Alaska.  It's called the Alaska Public Lands Information Center (APLIC) and is owned by the Federal Government.  This is exactly what I was looking for.  It's not enough to just look at brochures but talk to people who have been to those places and has intimate knowledge of them.

B&B Where I stayed in Anchorage

Anchorage Visitor Center

Alaska Public Lands Information Center

I saw a few excellent videos about Alaska at the APLIC.  I also joined a walking tour about Captain James Cook and the impact he had on Alaska.  It seems like he left his name everywhere I went:  Australia, New Zealand, and now Alaska.  Western history books may have said that he discovered Alaska but Alaskan natives, who have been here for more than 10,000 years, will strong disagree with that.  Unfortunately, he was killed by the Hawaiian natives on his third voyage.

I walked around and explored downtown Anchorage but there was not much to see.  You can easily cover the whole in about an hour.  One of the interesting facts about Anchorage is that you can fish for salmon only a few blocks from downtown.  I went to check it out and sure enough there were quite a few fishermen at Ship Creek fishing there.

A Statue honoring Captain James Cook

Salmon Fishing at Ship Creek

I topped off the day with a nice salmon dinner at a local pub

My plan for the second day was to rent a bicycle and ride along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.  The bus ride from the B&B where I stayed to downtown is about 30 minutes.  I started early, had breakfast at McDonald's, and was downtown around 10 am.  I rented a bike from Pablo's at the corner of 5th Avenue and M Street.  It costs $20 for 3 hours plus $5 extra per hour.  By 10:30 am I was on the bike trail.  The trail is about 20 miles round-trip and normally takes about 3-4 hours.  It goes through some beautiful pristine forest and with views of Cook's Inlet, the distant mountain ranges and downtown Anchorage.  If you are lucky, you can run into some wildlife along the trail.  As I was rounding a corner, all of a sudden I saw two moose in front of me.  I stopped and took several pictures.  I was hoping to see other animals, including bears, but I was not so lucky.

Getting ready for a biking adventure on the trail

A beautiful creek along the trail

View of distant mountain ranges

Beautiful Aspen trees

A monument commemorating the 1964 earthquake

What the trail looks like

Some beautiful homes 

Warning about Moose - accidents must happen quite often

A couple of moose grazing alongside the trail

In the afternoon I spent a few hours at the Anchorage Museum, located downtown.  It's an excellent museum with a lot of history of Alaska and what their current concerns are.  One prevailing theme I see is the concern with climate change.  Alaska's ecology and livelihood depends on ice.  With ice melting faster than before, it affects the entire food chain, from the phytoplankton to the whales.

Anchorage Museum

One interesting observation is the number of Asian restaurants in the city.  As I take the bus and walked around downtown, I saw many Vietnamese, Japanese and Thai restaurants.  I even ate Thai food at a Vietnamese restaurant.  According to the museum, the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders make up about 8% of the population of Alaska.  That's more than Native Alaskans.