Anchorage people and places

So yesterday was another fun filled day in Anchorage. I went downtown and did a little gift shopping. There is gift shop after gift shop which really serves to remind you how much the population must swell with tourists in the summer. This is the very beginning, so I'm sure I'll be surprised to see what it's like in mid-summer when everything is in full swing.

I got some good stuff for people and had a good time looking for stuff. My favorite items are the earrings I got for Leah. I usually get her earrings for gifts, but only if I find a pair I really like. I looked in every gift shop between Dawson Creek and here for a pair that was nice and really representative of where I was. I had a really hard time doing that! Everything was ugly! I wanted to get her earrings that she'd actually wear and I don't see Leah wearing Moose on her ears anytime soon. Yesterday I came across the perfect pairs. I got two because I couldn't decide. One pair is a neat series of little off-white beads sort of in a dangling cluster and what's cool about them is that they're made out of prehistoric mastodon tusk. The others are made of prehistoric walrus tusk and are just a single piece dangling. Both were found in Alaska, probably in some sort of archaeological dig investigating the ancient peoples. So, being the nerd I am, I'm really excited about the earrings. I might have to borrow them when I finally get my ears pierced.

I did a lot of driving around yesterday just checking things out. I've had some trouble getting my bearings on these roads because they're mostly one way and they also sometimes take a 90 degree turn off of the general grid setup so it gets confusing that you could be going north on a road and then be on the same road going east. It's fine when I'm driving, but when I have to pull out of a parking lot and go the one way I can go, I never know which part of a road I'm on, the one facing east or the one facing north. wow, I hope nobody actually reads that last paragraph.

So, in my meandering I came across a park on the ocean. I've been looking for one to look out across the water at the mountains so I was glad to find it. I was taking some pictures and one of the ones I snapped had some birds flying somewhere in the foreground. . . or so I thought. I looked up and away from the camera and noticed the birds were acting awfully funny and I realized that I was looking at the air force doing drills. Some sort of fighter jets. It was actually neat to watch - they may have been doing touch and go drills because I kept seeing them loop around in a big circle and land. I'd see three do the loop in a spread out line, land and then there would be no planes in the sky and then minutes later three more would appear out of nowhere and there were still 2-4 more other planes that weren't landing at all, they were flying much further out and doing turns etc, so I really couldn't tell you how many planes were out and about at a time. When they'd loop around to come in for a landing they'd turn so you could see almost the full wingspan. I tried so hard to get a picture of one like that with the mountains in the background. They were far enough away that I didn't have trouble following their speed, but they were also in the digital zoom zone, which is tough. following an object in the sky with digital zoom is NOT easy. Every little shake of your hand throws you miles off course. Luckily they were doing the drills over and over, so I had time to get used to where they'd be and when, so I did get a few okay pictures. There were actually a lot of other people sitting in their cars at the park looking over the water, possibly watching the same thing I was.

After then planes I went for some dinner. I went to a Vietnamese place and got ginger chicken and boy was it good. I'm thinking I'd better get my ethnic food fill while I'm in Anchorage because they probably won't have much variety down in Sterling. It's funny that Sterling is now DOWN to me. It's been UP there for so long. I can't believe how far north I am. Surprisingly it isn't too cold. I'd compare it to a very early spring at home. Where you could have temperatures anywhere from 35 to 65 during the day.

It's funny how I seem to find home connections all the time. I saw this little old woman who must have been 90 who had patches all over her jacket from places she'd been. As I walked by her I happened to notice on her shoulder facing me was a Patch from Salem, MA. I said "hey, that's where I'm from!" We talked for a minute about New England and all of the history there and about how driving around is a pain. She said she was trying to get to Bunker Hill and they just kept going in circle after circle. I told her she wasn't missing much. What I really wanted to tell her is that she was driving in circles around Beacon Hill and that Bunker Hill is actually in Charlestown.

Another fun one was a narcissistic liar I met at a gas station. He saw my license place and asked where in Mass Whoa-burn is. My car is from a dealership in Woburn, so it says it on the plate bracket. I guess his sister lives in Easthampton or something like that. In our 5 minute conversation he told me he's a doctor starting a new medical center in Anchorage, he speaks 15 languages, he owns a Lincoln but would rather ride his bike and he hangs out at gas stations because he likes meeting people, etc. Basically I didn't believe anything he said for a second, but he was entertaining so I just let him think I believed him. He was knowledgeable in several subjects. He was an intelligent guy, so who knows, maybe he was a whacked doctor. You never can tell. I should have asked him what field of Medicine he's in to try to separate fact from fiction. I've got a pretty solid medical knowledge base for an uneducated buffoon, so I probably could have tripped him up if he was lying.

He asked me what I do for a living and I told him I quit my job and just moved here yesterday, so nothing. He insisted on knowing my field of expertise. I wanted to tell him I'm a professional dabbler, but I just told him I did computer stuff so I wouldn't have to give any sort of further explanation. He looked up and to the right in thought and said, "hmm, computers. . ." then turned back to me and said, "when we get this medical center started, you've got yourself a job. Just ask for Dr. Donaldson and you've got a job." Fabulous! I found my calling - working in a pathological liar's fairytale. I told him I actually wouldn't be in Anchorage, I'd be on the Kenai, so thanks, but no thanks. He instantly told me I should go to Cordova instead because Anchorage is like Russia, and Cordova is like Seattle. Then he said, "Russia is bleak. I speak Russian, you know?"

He was a piece of work, but it was interesting.

I added some more pictures - the album is titled Anchorage1. I uploaded them full size this time so that the detail will be better on the air force jet pictures. I also added some edited pictures taken from ones you've already seen for detail purposes.