Getting Ready for the Trip East

Slow weekend Brian says - no pictures of anything, but we took a long, long walk yesterday along Ship Creek, paved trail the whole way, and then watched the fishermen fishing for salmon along the creek when we walked back.  One man had a pretty big salmon he'd caught, probably a King, but most were catching it looked like.   Wikipedia says that Ship Creek is an Alaskan River that flows from the Chugach Mountains into Cook Inlet.  The Anchorage Museum website cites Ship Creek as the site of a "Tent City" in the early 1900s and says "Anchorage was established as a railroad construction camp early in 1915. The Alaska Railroad was being built by the federal government to develop Alaska’s resources, particularly coal. Many construction workers and entrepreneurs first lived in “Tent City” along Ship Creek. In the summer of 1915 a town site was laid out on the bluff above tent city, lots were auctioned off and people built homes and businesses in what is now downtown Anchorage. Between 1920 and 1940 the Alaska Railroad remained the largest local employer and the population slowly built up to about 2000 residents, making Anchorage one of the five largest towns in Alaska. The military (and population) build-up caused by World War II and the Cold War changed Anchorage from a small town to Alaska’s largest city."  


Today we took another walk but stopped to listen to music, have a beer and some salmon chowder in the Town Square, where there is free music every Friday night for the summer from 5-8 pm.  Then we walked along the coastal trail from 5th Ave. and back home before watching Series 2 of the Wallander series (Swedish detective stories, BBC production).  Judy has read all of the books by Henning Mankell about Detective Kurt Wallander, and the movies are good too!  


Lots of packing up and getting ready to go at this point, and Judy's in The Wisdom Course this weekend.  We will be leaving early morning on the 21st, so right at the peak of Summer Solstice.  It's 10:00 pm now and broad daylight, so when our plane takes off at 12:30 am on the 21st, we'll be able to see the view still for an hour or more, maybe longer - it will be light til almost 2 am!  And light again by 4 or so, so not much darkness at all - a lot to get used to!  


See all of you in the east soon, and we'll look forward to it but also look forward to our return to Alaska!