Complimentary breakfast from the hotel, because renovations have rendered the restaurant unusable, then we're off on a walking tour of Anchorage:
Town Square:
Time to look at the sculptures in daylight and appreciate them more fully -
a tremendous amount of work must go into them.
Visitor Centre:
Here there is a sign pointing to all places around the world including Anchorages
twin town - Whitby in the UK. Whitby! I guess it is the Captain Cook connection
that gave them that idea.
Alaska Statehood monument:
A bust of Eisenhower to commemorate the act that made Alaska the 49th State.
Old wooden Cottages:
Some of the oldest houses in the town (or is it a city), including that of
Leopold David, first mayor of Anchorage.
Resolution Park:
A statue of Captain Cook looks out over Cook inlet.
Elderberry Park:
There is a historic house here (Oscar Anderson - closed like every other one).
The only other thing of note is that Val slipped and fell. Walked a bit of a
trail from here, before going back up the hill onto 5th Avenu the main street,
and a quick comfort stop at the Hotel.
Quick vist to the Cook Inlet Book Company to buy a map, on then to the museum before continuing to a park, which turns out to be a cemetary - the map was wrong. After the cemetary we used another map that took us to Delany Park which has a train to play on.
After having a bit of a play on the steam train - sorry couldn't resist it, I wanted to be an engine driver when I was a lad - we walked up to Oomingmak Musk Ox Producers Co-Op, but it was closed.
Tried to find a cafe and failed, but did find a grocers store in the bus station, which reminded me that for the middle of Anchorage I hadn't seen any buses - perhaps they don't run on Sundays.
Next stop a sort of Omnimax theatre showing a film about Alaska. The same place has an earthquake museum with a great deal of information and photographs about the 1964 Good Friday earthquake (9.2 on the Richter scale). We had a free ticket included among the stuff Val picked up at the visitor centre, but the attendant obviously considers a free ticket to be license to insult as she asks us if we were Senior Citizenns - bloody cheek!
Quick thoughts on the choice of clothing brought means Andrew thinks it would be a good idea to get a sweat shirt - the first shop was staffed the the most miserable woman in Alaska - well she seemed like it - but they had nothing suitable anyway (thank goodness, I didn't want to give her my dollars). Across the road on the other corner was "Grizzly Bros." who had exactly what I was looking for.
Back at the Hotel for 6.00pm and the planned lecture by John Mason on the Aurora Borealis - formation and what to look for. All over by 6.45 (including questions), so retired to the room for some soup.
A brief summary on the formation of aurora and why Alaska in March:
Like any natural phenomena, such as the aurora or even a solar eclipse, you
can't guarantee that you will see it, all you can do is give yourself the best
chance. The aurora is produced by the particles ejected from the sun spiralling
down the Earth's magnetic field lines and exciting the oxygen and nitrogen atoms
in the atmosphere to give off a variety of coloured "lights" in the sky - and
hence exciting all the people on earth watching them. The orientation of the
Earth at the Spring Equinox (20 March) increases the chances of the solar wind
particles entering the Earth's magnetic field, add to this the increased sunspot
activity as the Sun approaches "Solar maximum" during 2000/2001 and things are
looking pretty good. All this usually takes place in an band, called the auroral
oval, around the geomagnetic North Pole - where your compass points to and located
in far North-East of Canada (79N, 105W). Picking a time close to a New Moon
means that there is no Moon in the sky to add extra glow to obscure the relatively faint aurora.
So, here we are, in Alaska in early March, "freezing our butts off" as the locals might say.
At 8.00pm we go out to take some night pictures of the illuminated ice statues, oh and Val slipped and fell. Amazingly for a place that gets a lot of snow and ice the pedestrian ways are lethal with pack ice 2 or 3 inches thick in places, while the roads are clear.
9.00 Back to the hotel and say hello to our short lost suitcase, some decent toothpaste and a whole heap of biscuit crumbs - a packet burst en route. The intention was not to pack this case but we, oh alright Val, had to unpack it all empty it of crumbs, clean it and repack - I think she should have the $100 voucher all to herself.
Another shower before bed - I'm only showing off that I know how to use it.
Goto Day 3:Anchorage to Denali National Park (Healy)
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