On the ground in Anchorage

Day 9: Anchorage.

I took a few days off of flying to explore Anchorage and its surroundings until my wife flew up on an airline from California. Executive summary for someone considering visiting Anchorage: The city offers surprisingly decent deals on food, fuel, and equipment considering its location. For the pilot or aviation enthusiast, taking some time to explore the local flying scene, Lake Hood, and the aviation museum are worthwhile diversions. Other than these, I offer one simple recommendation: Get out of town. A friend of mine in California remarked before I left that Anchorage reminded him a lot of a larger version Klamath Falls, Oregon where we went to college: a functional if somewhat depressed ex-logging town surrounded by good outdoor opportunities. I think his assessment was spot on.

My choice for lodging was a hostel. This started out good and turned out bad, but then they are often a crap-shoot. The place was clean though, and surprisingly was frequented by an older set of travelers, something I wasn't used to. My prior hosteling experiences have been in Europe where it was mainly the college and early-20s set. Here the owner enforced no drinking & smoking rules, and reasonable quiet hours. The nice thing is that you usually meet one or more interesting people, and this was no exception.

My sole roomate was Ira, a 76-year old semi-retired nightclub owner from Missouri. He had travelled to Alaska on a ferry, up on the Alaska marine highway, camping out along with the younger folks to save money and enjoy the view. His businesses had done well and were now mostly managed by his children, but he still preferred to use budget accomodations travelling for the same reasons I did: to meet people and be able to afford longer trips.

"If I'm not going for 5-6 weeks, I may as well stay home" he remarked. I want to have that attitude to travel when I'm 76, and beyond.

Ira had some interesting tales to tell about the Blues club business. From being backstage with Elvis before he was big, to big-name blues musicians [the name alludes me and my notes] who showed up at his club unannounced, after bailing out of a big-dollar gig at a large auditorium after playing just an hour-long set, to then play at his place until the sun rose. He'd led an interesting life, now spending his summers at a cabin in the high mountains of New Mexico where he had some interesting tales on the ramifications of befriending a black bear.

I did a walking tour of downtown Anchorage, but didn't feel compelled to check much out. Perhaps if I were in the market for something made of fur, or a bearskin rug? Later I caught a bus over to the main airport (Ted Stevens) where I'd secured a cheap rental car (the standard rate was well over $130 a day -- get a corporate discount code if you can), and to check out neighboring Lake Hood.

Lake Hood is a must-do for folks with any interest in aviation, and will probably be interesting even for those who aren't into airplanes. A large lake, adjacent Ted Stevens international airport is home to a towered seaplane base with several runways (water lanes), a gravel strip, and like Merrill Field, hundreds of aircraft jammed into every nook and cranny. The difference here was that many were floatplanes with a "slip" rented as you would a tie down. On the far side of the field a float dealer had row upon row of aircraft floats stacked on racks. Every parking spot was occupied. Specially modified trucks were set up to take non-amphibious airplanes out of the water. Roads doubled as taxiways with signs warning motorists to yield to airplanes, and pilot-operated gates allowed aircraft to cross from the gravel runway at Lake Hood Strip, over a series of road/taxiways, and into the international airport. The whole place was abuzz with activity.

B737 gravel deflector

The Alaska Aviation Heritage Museum, also at Lake Hood, chronicles the progression of aviation in the state from bush pilots to the progression of Alaska Airlines. The museum I'd rank as interesting but "OK"... something you can skip if budgeting time (but don't skip a trip around Lake Hood!). The most interesting thing, to me, was a retired Alaska B737-200 with a gravel kit installed, out in the open for visitors to poke around. The aircraft had something like 67,000 flight hours on it before being retired, and had many areas of damage that were repaired (i.e. dings near boarding doors that were fixed with fat doublers and massive quantities of rivets). This made me feel better about my airplane with 4,300+ hours since new.

Into the Matrix?

B737 skin doublers

B737 engine modification to deflect air at the ground to prevent injestion of rocks and debris

Besides Lake Hood, I poked around the area and found the nearby Earthquake Park and was surprised by how lush the coastal forest was; there were a plethora of colorful mushrooms.

Beyond that, the road wrapped around the back side of the international airport offering a nice place, surprisingly close to the runway, to watch airliners and B747 freighters land. It was refreshing to see someone taking their kid down to watch airplanes land, rather than an environment of paranoia that might cause such an act to be treated suspiciously in a place like, say, New York.