Day 36 & 37 Anchorage

We have spent a delightful two days with Rick & Jo Phillips and their son Hunter, Jeff’s niece and her family. Rick is assigned to Elmendorf AFB here in Anchorage and they arrived here in February of this year, brrrr!

We spent today sightseeing in downtown Anchorage, a truly unique Alaska city of 260,000 that reflects its frontier character. Unlike many of the coastal communities of Alaska Anchorage does not owe its existence to the gold rushes around the turn of the century. It came into being in 1915 as the construction of the Alaska Railroad got underway and saw immediate growth during WWII and the discovery of oil on the Kenai Peninsula in 1957 and on the North Slope in 1968.Our tour of downtown Anchorage included seeing salmon fishermen on the ship canal a couple of blocks from the city center and admiring buildings peppered with murals. A visit would not be complete without a visit to the Uli knife factory and checking out the many amusing salmon statutes around the downtown.

We had lunch at the Sourdough Barbecue Restaurant, one of the better meals we have enjoyed in Alaska. If you come be sure to order some of their homemade corn fritters!

Next door is the Alaska Wild Berry Park and we all enjoyed wandering around the store with its bears and chocolate waterfall.We really needed the walk around downtown after lunch so we passed on the free trolley system that will get you around the shopping district.

On our way back to Rick and Jo’s we got a quick tour of Elmendorf which supports a fighter wing of F-15s and the new F-22 Raptors as well as a wing of C-17 heavy lift transports.

Weather permitting Rick and Jeff will play golf on the base golf course while Jo and Sue continue touring and shopping.