North to Alaska: Kellie's Anchorage

What a lovely day we had in Anchorage, thanks to Kellie, the daughter of some of our best friends in the world. She and her husband lived in Anchorage for a while and she gave me some great tips on where to go, what to do on our day in Anchorage. We pretty much made her tips our check-off list and it worked out really well.

We had made reservations for a rental car. We took a taxi to the rental place and soon had our little Subaru, ugly-color SUV. Our first stop—Fred Meyer. No, that wasn’t on Kellie’s list. Yes, we are still seeking to solve the Black Slacks Saga!! Thanks to GPS we found a Freddies and it took about a second to get the security device removed from the slacks. All that bother for an almost instant solution. LOL Oh, the agony of this first-world problem!!

Okay, on to Kellie’s list. We headed out to Woronzof Point Park, near the airport. Here, we just made a very quick stop, took a couple of pictures of Cook Inlet and then headed off. I’m sure we could have spent hours there, hiking and looking at the surroundings, but we wanted to move on.

Our next destination was Potter Marsh. We had no idea what to expect, but when we got there we were very pleased. It was “accidentally” created when they were putting in the railroad in that area. The marsh has become home to many birds and animals including moose, bears, wolves, eagles, etc. We didn’t see much wildlife, just a few birds including an eagle. However, we really enjoyed walking the boardwalk and taking in the beauty around us.

After out time at Potter Marsh, we got back on the Seward Highway (Alaska Highway #1) and continues along the shore of Turnagain Arm. The scenery all along this highway was more and more beautiful at every turn. We made a few stops at viewpoints, including Beluga Point. If I lived here, I would want to go on long drives every day. I can’t begin to describe the majesty of these mountains rising so abruptly out of the sea. We even saw two glaciers along the way as a bonus.

Our final stop on Seward Highway was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. I love these places. The setting is always so simple, natural. The animals are rescued for various reasons and can’t return to the wild because they wouldn’t have the skills to survive. For instance, the bull moose (Hank) was rescued as a young calf with a broken leg. The large brown bear was found as a cub abandoned by his mother because he had gotten porcupine quills in his feet and couldn’t walk—dehydrated, malnourished, he was nursed back to health but would never survive on his own. An eagle found had a wing amputated because it had been shot. Anyway, I am always happy to support these refuges. We had a great time at this refuge, walked the full loop seeing many beautiful animals. This was a great experience.

At first I had been a bit nervous about this day. I hate to waste time trying to decide what to do, trying to find places, but this day went like clockwork and we thoroughly enjoyed the nice drive, no time limits, nobody’s schedule but our own.

Both of us quite hungry now, we checked off one more stop on Kellie’s list—-The Moose ’s Tooth Pub and Pizzeria. She had claimed it was the best pizza she had ever eaten in her life. Sounds good!! We found the restaurant, parked and found that it was apparently a VERY popular place. It was PACKED, crazy busy for a Monday afternoon. It only took about 20 minutes, though, and we were seated. I ordered a small “Santa’s Helper” pizza (fitting, right?). Brian, not really feeling the desire for pizza, ordered a big bowl of beef barley soup (which was SO yummy!). The pizza was good!!The crust was perfect, the topping a great mix of pepperoni, chicken, bacon, and steak strips with red peppers, olives, and some green vegetable. Red and green—Christmasy!! Heh.