Alaska #2

We woke up this morning around 07:30 local time (12:30 pm EST) after finally crashing about 01:30 am. (at that point we had been up almost 24 hrs.) We went down to partake of the continental breakfast here at the Laughing Moose Comfort Inn. I have named it that because of the giant moose head hanging in the entranceway that appears to be laughing. Exactly why he is laughing when he is dead and stuffed is a mystery. Oh, and also in the front hall are a huge wolf pelt, a black bear that looks like it’s been run over by a steam roller complete with it’s tongue hanging out, and a giant stuffed brown bear. The top of the bear reaches all the way to the floor level of the second floor balcony. During breakfast we recognized the picture in the Alaska paper of a famous musher running in the Iditarod sitting at the table next to us. His name was Ken Anderson and he was very nice. This morning we put Miss Vickie on the job of negotiating a new accommodation contract. She managed to get us a discount rate for our remaing stay, and comp for the room we shared last night. They quickly had a room ready for us and we moved right across the hall and landed. We have a room now overlooking the famous Ship Creek. I think this is the one in the old saying “Up Ship Creek without a paddle”. We’re getting our collective acts together and will be heading out to explore Anchorage soon. We donned all our cold weather gear and realized we needed to be outside soon. It’s a new thing—I’m dying from the heat and I need to get out where it’s cold. We went across the street to the snow sculpture competition. It was very interesting. They took a parking lot and piled it full of snow about 8 feet deep. After it had settled down and hardened, they came back with front-end loaders and sculpted out walls and raw blocks for the competition. The blocks for the competition were about 10 feet by 10 feet by 8 feet of rock solid snow. Each team somehow chiseled out their vision. The results were quite interesting. After the snow sculpture we walked over to the Ulu Knife Factory, which is right beside our motel. We saw how they made the knives, did some shopping, boarded the Fur Rondy trolley, and headed up to the city. The trolley let us off in front of the Alaska Salmon Chowder House, which came highly recommended by our trolley driver. It was lunchtime so we decided to check out the food at the Alaska Salmon Chowder House. It was great. Among us we had the special times 3 and a bowl of chili. The special was a half a salmon salad sandwich and a bowl of the chowder of your choice. Jerry and I had the Halibut chowder and Vickie had classic clam chowder. Brenda had a bowl of chili. All of the chowder was killer good, and the chili was fine. The sandwiches were on nice crusty rolls with crisp lettuce and the salmon salad (like chicken salad) was very good. After lunch we watched the TV trucks setting up and set off exploring downt own Anchorage. I guess I never knew, but a huge earthquake largely destroyed Anchorage back in the 60’s. Also we found out the tourist business here is very seasonal. Other than now (Iditarod) winter is pretty slow with tourists. Well they have plenty of souvenir shops, right on the main streets. We visited several shops and while walking along the street heard a dog barking. We looked up and saw a sled dog standing on the roof 2 stories above us surveying the crowd, We then headed off and hiked a few blocks (via the adult beverage store) to the only official Iditarod souvenir shop. Jerry and I found the Iditarod store and got some “stuff”. We had split up earlier, and we met back up with the girls. Jerry and I decided to head back to the motel, and the girls went on to the mall that contained the Iditarod store. I was having a little trouble walking, so we decided to take the trolley back. We saw it down the street, and Jerry took off at a fast clip trying to catch it. He caught u p to it only to find it idling with no driver. A short indigenous woman with one tooth smoking a cigarette was standing next to the bus. Jerry asked her if she was the driver, and it seemed like she said yes. We figured she was on a break and sort of hung around. Upon further conversation with this lady, it seemed she was somewhat (or a whole what) tipsy. Jerry and I started wondering if we really wanted to get on the trolley with her as the driver. Just about the time we were really getting nervous, here came the real driver out of a nearby store. Seems this old Native American woman had taken the liberty of Bs’ing us for her own entertainment. Well we got on the trolley with the real driver, and set out on another adventure. Seems we had to ride the whole trolley route with him to get back to the motel. He proceeded to tell us his and Anchorage’s life story. Now well educated, Jerry and I were dropped off back at the motel. I noticed some activity at the far end of the parking lo t (right next to the giant mountain of snow) that seemed to involve sleds. We wandered down and found another of the Iditarod mushers complete with competition sled and dogs. The dogs were happily resting in straw nests inside a large white trailer, and the sled was being inspected on the trailer ramp. We had a nice discussion with the musher, and learned a lot about how the Iditarod works. Her name was Anne Capistrant, and she’s wearing bib number 88. (of 97 mushers in the race) We needed some munchies and liquid refreshments, so we got directions from the desk clerk and set off for the grocery store. We ended up at Carr’s Safeway, which was a large well-stocked store. Seems Safeway here has a curious arrangement. They can’t sell adult beverages in the grocery store, so they just build a little store on to the end of the grocery store and sell them there. It even takes Safeway customer rewards cards, which we just happened to have thanks to a very friendly checkout lady at the Saf eway grocery store part. Even while traveling, we saved over $15.00 with our Safeway card. Of interest along the way back from the grocery store was something called Falafel King, which appeared to be some kind of fast food establishment. (upon further research, it is some kind of mid-eastern sandwich of fried chickpea balls in pita bread. Says McDonalds even has one in Egypt called McFalafel). We got back to the motel, and found that in our absence the fire alarm had gone off somehow caused buy the person of questionable legality vacuuming in the hall. Seems like it must be a routine problem as he assured all the heads poking out of the doors “no problem, no problem”. (oh and he called Vickie sir, she couldn’t believe he thought she was a guy) We settled down for the evening, and dinner became what we rounded up at the grocery store interspersed with adult beverages and hearty laughter at the day’s events. Miss Vickie came up with a good one; she looked outside to see if it had “s nown”, guess that is southern for snowed. Since our clocks are all on Eastern Time, which is 4 hrs later, we soon headed off to bed. I awakened at my usual 07:00 only to find here the clock read 03:00. I got up to write, and ended up working with the Dr’s. by cell phone to get my dad back in the hospital. He is not doing well again, and his GI track is not cooperating. My sister scanned and emailed me all his test reports, and now I am really confused. The biopsy was not inconclusive it was NEGATIVE???? The only test that indicates cancer is a blood test that has to be confirmed by a biopsy. So we’ve gone full circle, and we’re back where we started 2 weeks ago. Well we’ll just have to see how it goes as he reenters the hospital. Look for us today on the TV at the Iditarod start. More later.

Wes