day 56 - Anchorage to airport

Friday July 28 – day 56 –Anchorage to airport….

Wish I could have overslept intentionally, cause I know it’s going to be a loooong day, but alas, the bladder alarm clock has no snooze, and once awake, I’m awake for good. 

Final packing was pretty easy, cause we’ve had 3 days of practice and preparation.  We’re allowed one checked bag for free, but have 5 bags worth of stuff.  In an effort to economize (to avoid baggage fees) I put various misc items (rain gear, some shoes, other clothes, and both pistols) in the freezer then in the fish coolers (there were 2, because we caught too many fish) to efficiently pack. Deanna wins the stacking award, though, cause her bag weighed 50.4# (carried like 75) and the airlines were nice enough to round down. 

Amanda thought that the kitty should be part of her carry on luggage :-)

We left the AirBnB house around 1pm, and headed to Campbell Creek Science Center.  This is a ~700 acre park on the east side of town.  It is home to a lot of wildlife.  We saw some spawned out (ie dying) red/sockeye salmon, and the river stunk just a bit from other decaying carcasses.  On our hike, we also encountered about 30 kids under the loose control of 3 or 4 early 20’s teachers.  Kids were just running rampant, and it seemed like a stressful situation (having that many kids running crazy in bear country) but it didn’t phase the teachers.  Either they are locals, or just don’t care.  Or both.

Still fighting his way upstream

We saw one decaying salmon carcass up on a ridge above the creek. I’m not sure if it died of natural causes, eagle, or bear, but for sure, the fish didn’t jump 10’ above waterline and onto shore on his own. =P

Yeah... this fish looks like it died of natural causes up here on the bank

Fresh bear poop- at least it didn't have any tiny bells in it :-)

Continuing our hike, we came across lots of bear sign, including a very fresh stool sample.  It looked so fresh it looked like it ought to be steaming.  In no time, my kids were playing with it, trying to get bear poop on their sibling.  Sibling love is special like that…..

After that, we fiddled around town, hitting the local fur trading company, the berry/chocolate factory (home of the largest milk chocolate fall), then the Museum at Wells Fargo, which showed cool samples of local history/relevance.

Then we made our final thrift store donation and headed to the iconic Mooses Tooth.  We arrived at 5pm, and the wait was already “55 minutes”, although it didn’t take that long to get us seated.  A couple hefeweizens later, we were staring down a large Carnivore, and a large chicken Rockefeller.  These pies were awesome.  The Rockefeller actually included “garlic” as a topping. Close inspection revealed that entire cloves were used to top the pizza, and they were fantastic. Probably not the nicest thing to order before settling in for 3, 4 and 1 hour flights next to strangers, but the pizza was awesome.  We ended up with 4 pieces for leftovers, to serve as breakfast later.  J