Sun Always Shines in Alaska
Day 95 – July 4, 2003 – Friday
The Fourth of July in Anchorage, Alaska. State #26 on our trip. We flew Alaska Airlines from Seattle to Anchorage. It is 2,400 miles by car with not much to see but more trees, so we decided to fly when we planned the trip. We’ve now traveled by car, bus, trolley, boat, ferry, fire engine, train, and plane.
Before we left Seattle, we had an opportunity to meet some of the people at the Science Fiction Convention at the Doubletree Hotel near the Seattle Airport. Interesting folks. I spoke with Axel Moeller, a writer and illustrator, and Lauryn, a costume designer. Most of the attendees of the convention are science fiction fans who are really into this. Many of them like to wear costumes. Different.
Curtis took care of us at Alaska Airlines. Upgraded to First Class for a mere $50. Very pleasant flight. Boz inhaled our family friend’s latest novel, “Isabel’s Daughter.” She couldn’t put it down, so we think Judi Hendricks has another bestseller on her hands!
Anchorage is clean and nice. Quiet place. Much smaller than I anticipated — only 250,000 population. Alaska doesn’t seem particularly patriotic — very few flags. We saw no sign of fireworks anywhere. When you think about it, when could they set them off? It doesn’t ever get dark at night during July, so fireworks are probably not high on the celebration list.
Al and Mary Ann from Tampa, Florida sat behind us on the flight, and then we ran into them again at our hotel. Johnny, Myra, and Maile were especially nice at the hotel when we checked in. They told us about several things that most tourists would probably miss, so we have added some specific things to our must-see list. We also met Luke.
Gwennie’s was recommended for dinner. Not good. My fish was obviously frozen; the corn was canned; and the bread was strange. I ordered an Apple Dumpling for dessert, and it wasn’t very good either. We were really looking forward to some good Alaska seafood. Maybe tomorrow.
We took red, white, and blue pies (Cherry, Apple, and Blueberry) back to the folks at the front desk at the hotel because they joked that we should bring them some pie.
The sun was fairly low in the sky about midnight, but our room faced west, and there was bright light shining around the curtains all “night.” We propped various things against the curtain throughout the night in an effort to minimize the bright sunlight that invaded the room. Different.
The lesson of the day is one we’ve learned before: the weather can have a major impact on sightseeing. This is, however, the only time that bright sunshine was a problem.
The Daily Journal of Round America:
Each day, we collect our thoughts on a web page just like this. We drop in some of the photos from the day. Our goal with the Daily Journal is to write about the towns we visit, the sights we see, the people we meet, and the pie we eat. We write about where we are, where we’ve been, and where we are going, but we also make observations about what we’ve seen and done as well as about life in general.
You can follow our travels from the Daily Journal section of this website. Other pages of interest include the running report of “vital statistics” on the Trip Scorecard, our nominations for the Best & Worst of the trip, as well as a rating of the pie we eat. If you’d like to see information for a specific state or town, click here, and then click on the state of interest, and the full itinerary is shown.