Anchorage, Alaska, United StatesANCHORAGE
Some detours on the way
On the way we wanted to stop at
Reflection lake and discovered everyone is here today – by the way there is
also a lot of traffic on the road, 4-lane highways, lots of cars, no parking –
really!!! Ok let’s keep on going, as this lake really doesn’t blow our mind.
Next stop Thunderfalls: first google map send us to the wrong spot, then we
discover there is no parking spot available and if there would be paid parking
(what!!!) and we would have to walk to the waterfall – with a lot and lot of
families – I mean really we saw so many amazing waterfalls, we don’t really
have to get in line.
Finding an RV Park in Anchorage
Gine said tonight we stay at an RV
Park because we need to wash ourselves proper, we check out #1 and it was in
the middle of industrial area with the next spot having barbed wire all around
– and when we read hookup 78$, gine said no. We stopped at closer to downtown
and it was behind a road with lots of shops, but the park was like old sardines
– so we drove to the Golden Nugget RV Park and could you believe it she only
had one electricity side available – at least it is only 53 $ (guess camping
here is not cheap) but the area was ok and the lady was super nice and gave us
a lot of helpful hints on where we will get all our staff.
Coffee and shower and it is already 5
pm – where did the day go!!
Time goes by when you go Shopping
As we discovered on our journey small
towns are expensive and the US is expensive and the combination is very
expenisve. That means we do a lot of big shopping here: first Supermarket Fred
Meyer – we didn’t get everything so we head to Walmart. Afterwards Pet Smart
and now it is an hour behind supper – so shopping will continue tomorrow and we
said let’s pick up something and we got a Pizza at Papa Johns (at least that
was a cheap and good deal).
Heading back Paul was not impressed
with the slow internet – but then better than nothing right!!
We are in Alaska’s largest city:
Anchorage
- By the way they don’t have sale tax here
- We are in Alaska’s biggest city with 300.000 people (that’s nearly half of Alaska’s population)
- If you are hungry they have 300 restaurants
- The first people the natives arrived here when they crossed the land bridge from Siberia
The ground would not stop shaking in
1964:
- Earthquakes are a fact in Alaska: every 15 Min is somewhere in the state an earthquake
- On March 27, 1964 Good Friday at 5.36 pm 13 miles below the ground massive blocks of rock shifted and snapped creating a gigantic earthquake
- It came in waves and happened over and over again: it seemed like forever and lasted 4 Min and 38 sec and was a 9.2 magnitude on the Ritcher scale
- 970 km of fault ruptured at onceand moved 18 m releasing 500 years of stress-built-up
- There were hundreds of aftershocks in the following weeks: 11 major aftershocks in the first day with magnitudes of over 6, then nine more with over 6 in the next 3 years and smaller once for over a year
- It originated near the Prince William sound and generated huge tsunamis from an underwater landslide. A few minutes after the quake the tsunami approached Valdez with 30ft high waves drowning 28 people and destroying most of the town, a 70ft wave struck Chenega a native community 33 people drowned, 20 Min later a 40 ft wave slammed into Seward followed by 5 more waves in the next few hours – the Tsunami barraged the town of Kodiak once and hour until 3 am, most of the city was destroyed
- Even as far away as in California 13 people died
- The Tsunami reached Prince Ruppert 3 hours after the quake, then Tofino and travlled up the Frod to Port Alberni where it destroyed 55 houses and damaged 375. It also hit Zeballos and the hot springs Cove
- In Alasksa 132 people died most of them by the Tsunami waves – it was the most powerful earthquake in North amerika and the 2nd most powerful recorded in the world history (Chile had a 9.6 quake in Valdiva in 1960)
What do you do in a big city?
First you go to Costco and buy
everything you need for the next 3 weeks and are here cheaper like oatmilk (haha
it is the same price in Us$ as we pay in Canada – except 1 US$ is not 1 CAD).
Then you go and get your hair cut as you look like you are on the road forever.
Then you need to go back to civilization and get an Alaskan Sim card to finally
get a wifi extender for the laptops as the one we have is super super old and
super super slow. That is called being in the city and this fills half of the
day.
The tropical greenhouse
Yesterday we saw a super cool orthodox
church, so today we drove by there to have a closer look – no looking inside as
it is closed and then we headed to the tropical greenhouse “the Mann Leisser
Memorial Greenhouse”: Gine read it is for free and as it is right on our way we
stopped there, first we thought we are at a wrong place but then we found the
entrance and were the only ones in the warm greenhouse with lots and lots of
cactuses and tropical plants – it was kind of cool and so out of place on what
we saw in the last little while
Watching the planes with the locals
As the sun is coming out, Gine said
let’s have a look if we can head to a park and enjoy the sunshine, first she
found the Lynn Ary Park: here we first try to find a spot for all the staff we
bought and miraculous we did – haha I wonder I heavy our camper now is. Then it’s
time for a coffee and we walk down towards the water – but decided it is not
such a great spot to hang out.
Gine found a spot saying “watch the
plane over you” and it is at the end of the runway, driving there we can see
some of the locals hanging out, as the planes when they approach come right
over your head and land in front of you, after a while we moved to another spot
with less wind, but no planes and then continued the road so we were right at
the fence where the planes land and take off – really and it is still windy. At
least we have some beautiful sunshine.
Finding free overnight camping
As we don’t’ want to pay everyday for
camping gine checked and said they say there is free camping at Cabelas let’s
check it out and we couldn’t believe it on how many RV’s where there, it is
nearly like an RV site itself – I guess this is as most malls and parking lots
have a no overnight parking sign. A quick detour to McDonalds to get our wifi
extenders set up and so we can go on the internet. Perfect – we found a spot
for the night.
What to do on a rainy day???
We wake up and I guess they are right
that in July it starts to rain, as it is cloudy again – we did get up and are a
bit on the computers and internet before having a lazy breakfast and to decide
what we will do:
Alaska Aviation Museum
Ok Planes always sound interesting and
so we went to visit the Aviation museum. The price is not cheap and afterwards
we decided the museum is small. Ok there are a few things which were interesting
like we learned more about the flying in the north, as well about the war in
WWII on the Aleutin Islands and saw some Japanese relicts, we saw a few old
planes and walked into an old tower – ok there was only some chairs inside.
- Skis for planes: ok so this is super cool – as we never saw something like that before
- Tragedy and recovery: we saw parts of an old wrecked plane: as it often happened people crashed, so did Steve Mills in 1936 – his grandson visited the crash side in 1995 – and after it the engine got recovered
- The Alaskan Airline Inuit: in 1972 the company was looking to redesign themselves they wanted to represent the spirit of the last frontier: so planes got totem poles, Russian spires, a gold miner, and a native Alaskan to honor the Arctic region and its indigenous people: in 2016 the smiling Inuit became the final logo
- Waterplanes: we learned that you have the Float planes which land with their two waterskies, there is also the Goose where the whole plane lands on its main belly and the wings have little side water skies
- In the Restoration hanger we saw lots and lots of tools as they are restoring another plane
- The pigs on Gull island: as they have the lakes here for the waterplane – it was a problem that the geese, ducks and sea gulls also nested here and bird and planes don’t go along together. So someone had the glorious idea to bring in 1993 pigs to the island: they had a collar and if they swam away from the island they got an electric shock. The pigs during the nights were eating the eggs and see there it worked (Lake Hood is the busiest sea plane base in the world with daily 200 take off and landings in summer up to 600 a day)
- One of the helicopters outside was designed for recue missions in Alaska and could operate until -54 C
Interesting Facts about Flying in
Alaska
- Aviation is the proof that given the will we can accomplish everything
- Alaska the last frontier – with the introduction of air planes it suddenly became within reach – the land with few roads or rail started to grow. Even after WWII only 20% of the communities could be reached by rail or road
- In 1924 the first flying service started out to fly mail from Fairbanks to McGrath
- During WWII most civil flight services were shut down and with the Japanese in Attu and Kiska there was a huge military growth in alaska
- Dog sleds from Alaska: in 1914 supplies to the French outposts near the German border were interrupted because of the mountains and snow: a former Alaska gold miner Rene Haas proposed dog sleds: they bought 500 dogs and equipment. Haas went to Alaska to look for lead dogs, he hired native craftsmen to build the dog sleds: 104 of Nome’s dogs left to help in the war in Europe: in Nov 1915 he left Montreal with 436 sled dogs and 70 sleds, they were running 60 dog sled teams to reach outposts, help in search and rescue, transport supplies and injured soldiers. By the end of the war – half of the dogs have died the rest got adapted by the mountain infantery who cared for them: the dogs got awarded with the Crois de Guerre medals
The only north-american batte in WWII
- Alaska:
- The US entered the war when Pearl Harbor was attacked in Dec 1941
- The Japanese wanted to have a defense line in the Pacific, so the US and the Soviets could link up this led to the occupation of the Aleutian islands in mid-1942 (the northern end) and the battle of Midway (the southern end near Hawaii): the Plan was that Japan attacks the Aleutian islands and then the Navy races north so Japan can capture Midway a day later
- On June 3 & 4 they bombed Dutch Harbor – but as the US deciphered the Japanese code they still had ships in Midway
- On June7 Japanese occupied Attu & Kiska Islands: Kiska had at that time a 10-Navy weather team – at one time the Japanese had 9000 troops stationed here
- The war lasted for over a year the US started to built new bases on the Aleutian Islands going towards Attu and Kiska: the first in Aug on Adak, they then started to bomb Kiska, as they advanced more bombing in Kiska occurred – in April 1943 Kiska got 145 bombed
- In May 1943 over 17.000 US and Japanese troops faced each other in Attu: the US assumed that 1700 Japanese were in Attu when in reality there were 2600, also the plan was to attack from several sites and that it will take 3 days – but the battle lasted 3 weeks: 546 US soldiers died and only 29 Japanese survived
- The Americans landed on May 11 on Attu and on Aug 15 the Allied forces occupied Kiska: 34.000 American and Canadian soldiers landed in Kiska and found it abandoned – but Japanese booby traps still caused many casulties
- They had major delays because of storm and bad weather – on Attu cold weather and fog are a constant: the fog creates such a dense cloud that everything 500 ft above sea level is invisible: the Japanese who were on the island for over a year hit their guns and troops above the cloud layer
- In June 1942 a Japanese submarine shelled a lighthouse on Vancouver Island and a Canadian Squadron was moved to the Aleutian Islands
- If you go today to Kiska you can still see the battle scars as it was never occupied: piers, boardwalks, tent sites, abandoned vehicles
Alaska Zoo
Gine said let’s go to the Alaska Zoo:
as it is always fun to watch animals. There are different zoos out there and
this is one really “local” zoo: as all the animals in the zoo are animals
living in either Alaska or other cold countries, sadly we couldn’t see the
Polar bear – as someone decided if the polar bear can decide to walk into the
training and other areas (not visible for visitors) then the polar bear is
getting it’s natural instincts (really – a bear born in a zoo and living in a
cage will develop natural instincts because he can visit one more room!!!). I
may should mention that nearly all animals in this zoo are rescue animals. Also
it was cool that they had ones in a while those boards where they compared
similar animals and always some cool info about the animals and sometimes even
the names from the natives.
All set in a forest it is not a really
huge zoo and this are the animals we actually visited:
- The Harbour seals: they had a underwater viewing and it was cute as they kind of tried to give Paul a kiss – what a shame the glass was in the way
- The Peregrin Falcon: it was sitting there and is a rescue animal from the Aleutian Islands, and as Paul pointed out the fasted bird up to 230 mi/hr
- Golden Eagle: ok it is also a super impressive eagle – but as per Gine not as amazing as the Bald Eagle – did you know that the Eskimos called it “Tikmiakpuk” – the largest bird
- Great Gray Owl: it is always amazing on how they stare at you
- Musk Ox and Oomingmak: when we came the first time they were all lying on the ground, the next few times they were always up – they are actually smaller than I thought, the horns on top of the head are super weird and Gine read that this is one of the few animals which survived the ice age – wow!!! And then when you look at where they live you get it I mean really in the super super north of Alaska, NWT and Yukon – like were it is always freezing. I thought it was acute the had a sign stating “I am a male Muskox and each fall I go through a period when I am grouchy to anyone who comes near my fence”. Ha and at one time we came and he run towards the fence at full force – so Gine jumped back when he banged into the fence – wow!!
- Tibetan Yak: those black ones are also some super impressive weird cow-style looking animals with super long hairs – they are actually endangered animals and live naturally in Tibet.
- Porcupines: we saw a few of them – haha we better stay a bit away from them
- Moose: first we only saw one and then later we saw some more – this time we also saw some male ones – yes they are impressive – even it was even cooler when we saw them in the wild
- Alpaca – the treasure of the Incas are always cute
- Bactrian Camel: they are from the desert Gobi
- Caribou: it looks like they are shedding their pelt – it would be so cool to see some in the wild, as they live in the Yukon and have one of the largest migration in the world – Kathy showed us some pictures as she saw them – maybe we get lucky ones we head back??? I thought they are fairly skinny and I found it amazing that they were eating branches (not leafs)
- Coyotes: they were super active and really tried hard to get the grass from outside the fence – must be so much better. When we came back later they were lazily sitting there and being comphy
- Amus tiger: this are the tigers from Russia – and one of them was sleeping and later we saw the other one and he also looked at us
- Bald Eagle: the best thing was he was sitting right at the fence less then a foot from us and we could see him literally into the eye and admire he huge sharp beak
- Black bear: actually he was not doing a lot – but what amazed me is when you compare his size to the really gigantic brown bear – huge difference
- Mountain goat: yes they are climbers and today we only could see the head poking out
- The Snow leopards: where sleeping like lazy cats
- Brown Bear: did we come today at nap time, as those two were also sleeping there lazily in front of us – and they are huge
- We saw a red-tailed hawk and also Raven
- Wolverine: this cuty was stuck behind a tree and sleeping
- Lynx: they have so cute faces and there were two – as this is a zoo with lots of trees, shrubs and greenery – like all natural there are a lot of spots where the animals can hide and we were super lucky to see both of them (ok on the other hand we didn’t see the red fox or the wolves)
When we came by the Animal infamery –
they had a cute little bear in there
Afterwards we went outside and had a
coffee only to go back to our favourites no the polar bear is still not hear,
but we visited the Tiger and this time we met the Lynx and Gine got nearly
attacked by the MuskOx (joke)
Time for some RV-Upkeep
Gine found one spot where we can fill
up gas, propane, dump and fill up water – now this is the perfect spot for
RV’s!!!
All set again for our next adventure.
Is it a store or a mueum??
Like yesterday we decided to park at
the Cabelas and said why not visit the store, now this is one super amazing
store, you walk in and at the top they have all the local animals staffed and
put in their environment on display and a huge display with the animals, a
waterfall and a fish tank in the back. If you walk around on the outside you
discover more of the animals and sometimes there is a “tree” in the store with
an eagles nest, a bear in a tree, a cougar jumping out of the tree. I mean this
is better than every museum and because it is a store it is free – that is one
super amazing place – a must visit if you are in Anchorage – and Gine’s new
highlight for this city.
The German A-Class RV
As we parked Paul said this is the
German Motorhome we saw earlier in our trip – as it is a very unique small
Mercedes A-Class with German lisence plate. After having supper Theo came over
and then talked to us, he travelled a lot and this is the first time he is on
the road without his wife to do a trip they planned together: Alaska. I guess
our German lisence plate does draw others to talk to us.
2025-05-22