While Bill and I are acutely aware that this will be our last day in Alaska, we determined that we will add more adventures to the list. We leave the campsite pretty much on time and as planned and headed the 40 total miles or so to Anchorage. The sky looked clear to the northwest so I was hopeful we’d get one last peek at Denali.
We pulled into Great Alaskan Holidays to drop off our RV with several other groups of folks. These guys have been great to work with. After a quick walk-through and around the motorhome, they assured us we would receive our entire deposit back. We stood around visiting with another family from Michigan (Troy) who were just dropping off their 29 foot RV. Great experiences all the way around. A young up-and-starting author, Bernard, was our chauffer to the airport. Bill and I were renting a car for the day since our flight was not scheduled to leave until 11:30 p.m.
We barely stuffed all of our bags into the back of a bright red Aveo that looked like it ought to have black spots painted on it (like a little ladybug). It was sufficient (just) enough to get us into downtown Anchorage for the first time. There’s a huge market every Saturday during the summer in the downtown area. Local craftsmen and women, furriers, farmers with produce, vendors with not-so-great stuff, and carnival food fare is in abundance. Reindeer sausage was a featured item as was Thai food, barbeque, and funnel cakes.
We strolled around and saw lots things we’d seen in other places, and then some. The Ice Age shop from Valdez had a nice booth set up here but they did not have the larger pieces that had been in the store. There were also ulu knives of every variety; some with carved tusk handles, many with caribou antler handles like the ones we’d purchased. It doesn’t take long before the eye gets accustomed to picking out the junk from the quality. I would say if a person wanted to save his or her souvenir shopping for the one-stop-circuit this would be the place. Everything was at the Anchorage market with comparable prices. We bought a couple little jewelry items and decided to wander around town a while.
This particular area of Anchorage draws a good many tourists and the city takes great care in putting her best face forward. There are huge hanging baskets of flowers dangling from the light poles, and a charming log cabin visitor’s center right down town. There’s also a “Wild Salmon on Parade” competition every year during which local artists produce cleverly painted or decorated fiberglass salmon that are on display throughout the downtown area. 
On one of the buildings, a little tricky to find, is a huge painting by Robert Wyland (appropriately) titled The Wyland Whale Mural. Because of construction in the area, Bill and I asked directions to this spot. 
I felt like I was on a treasure hunt. The painting spans the length of this building. I think without exaggerating, that it is a good block long. Several families of whales are depicted.
We did get an invitation from George and his wife Mary Lou to join them for dinner at 6:00 so we decided to work our day around that. We found a “hot spot” called Humpy’s and enjoyed a cold Alaskan beer there before heading back to the market for a quick funnel cake. 
From there we were off to the Alaskan Native Heritage Center. 
The ANHC is on the outskirts of town in a wooded area. There is a large building called “The Welcome House” with exhibits, native vendors, food, etc. as well as a “Gathering Place” where native songs, dances, and storytelling occurs. In back of The Welcome House, surrounding a pond, are 5 different lodges representing the cultural similarities of five major native groups; the Athabacscans, the Inupiat and Yup’ik, the Aleut and Alutiq, and the Tlingit (pronounced ‘Klink-it”, and Haida. Admission to this site was fairly steep (roughly $25 each) and I was disappointed that the lodges were not more accurate representations of the originals. 
Several times the narrators in each lodge would point out materials (as they would say) from Home Depot that if this was a “real” lodge, would have been created of dirt or woven grass, etc. I guess I had a difficult time figuring out “then why not?” At the end of our stroll we reentered The Welcome House and were entertained by a family group of native dancers and singers.
We left the Center close to closing time which was 5:00 p.m. We had an hour to kill before our dinner date. George had called and offered us the opportunity to take showers and change our clothes if we wanted. We had showered in the RV and there simply were no other clothes left for us to wear. I assured him we didn’t look or smell too bad but that we appreciated his offer.
We did a “drive by” of George’s street and ended up at St. Innocent’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral just down the road. The cathedral is brown with 12 large light blue onion domes. The priest was walking around the grounds and I motioned for permission to take a few photos. 
We still had lots of time to kill. Bill and I pretty much drove aimlessly around until 5:45 p.m. and then decided to beg forgiveness. We showed up at George and Mary Lou’s early and grateful to have been invited.
The subdivision in which George and Mary Lou live is full of fairly new homes with lovely lawns. I was struck by the aroma of lilacs when I stepped out of the car. Mary Lou was as kind and genuine as George. The walls of their house were filled with a variety of colorful artworks. There was a lovely series of three painting over the fireplace that reminded me of Katmai; it had bears in the foreground and glaciers in the background. Mary Lou explained that these were painted by a local artist who also doubled as a barber. There was also a painting of Denali by an elder relative who had taken up painting after retirement.
Before dinner we sat together on their southern-facing deck and admired their view of the mountains surrounding Anchorage. I could see how you could get real used to this. They asked us what we thought of Eklutna Lake and we both realized we’d never actually driven down to it, just camped in the parking lot! Mary Lou also shared her recollection of the earthquake of March 27, 1964. Her family lived in what is now nearly the center of downtown Anchorage. She said they had finished eating and she was doing the dishes. She could remember looking out the window and seeing the telephone poles and wires swinging back and forth as they made their way to the driveway for safety. Ann, with whom we had spent an evening in Homer, had also shared her childhood memories of the earthquake. To hear firsthand from people who had survived this mammoth quake really brought the history alive.
We stayed with George and Mary Lou until around 8:30 p.m. before heading back to the downtown area. Just prior to leaving we both used the restroom and subsequently both noticed a large framed collage on the hallway wall noting George’s retirement from the Alaskan Air National Guard as a Brigadier General! We knew he was retired military but he was so unassuming neither one of us would have guessed him to have been a General. What delightful people. This had really been a special time for us and these folks capped the deal with their welcoming generosity.
We headed back to Humpy’s on a quest to buy a Humpy’s t-shirt. By the time we found a parking spot it was already 9:00 p.m. We stopped inside for our last cold Alaskan-crafted beer. (Hey, we did not discriminate against any Alaskan artisans!). I decided to order one of Humpy’s most famous pizzas just to say “I tried Humpy’s famous pizza”. I ordered a seafood pizza that was made with a lemon-basil pesto sauce, scallops, tiger shrimp, and halibut, and then smothered in mozzarella cheese. While it was tasty and different, there’s something about eating a pizza that smells of fish that well, it just ain’t right! Not to mention that I wasn’t hungry. I’m glad I tried it though and there was plenty left to pass on to the young man to the right of me, with whom I’d struck up a conversation.
We bought our Humpy’s t-shirt (for my son Keenan who never seems to have any new shirts but is quite content to buy his entire wardrobe from Goodwill) and returned to our little bug of a rental car.
As we drove to the Anchorage airport we marveled at our trip. Aside from the bad weather day on the Denali Highway, the trip had been flawless. Everything had met and exceeded our expectations. Bill heaped praises on me for having been such a good planner and I noted how well we had travelled together, 24/7, during the past two weeks. One of the things that had made our trip so remarkable was the people we had met in Alaska; each with stories to tell and the generous hearts to share them. From our evening with Ann and Randy, that now seemed about a year ago; to our last night with George and Mary Lou. We had actually been welcomed into folks’ homes. How much more of an authentic visit can anyone have? 
Alaska is an experience not a place. It is getting out of the car and hearing, smelling, seeing, tasting, and feeling the earth around you. It is challenging your body to climb a little higher, hike a little longer, step a little farther onto the ice than you ever have. It is a place where all the troubles in your heart can surrender to the mountains or seas that so frequently seem to surround your body. Trivial worries cannot survive with such reminders of The Greater Scheme of Things. Every morning, every evening we were both touched by how very blessed we were to have made this journey. It was not easy. It was not cheap. But it was something for which we had both sacrificed and saved. It was the thing that kept us from eating out for more than a handful of times over the last year and a half. It was the thing against which we weighed any other purchases we made; do we really need this, after all we’re saving for Alaska. It helped us find our center and our priorities. It reminded us of the good in the world around us in spite of the obvious hardships.
Already we are talking about where we might go, what we might do if we ever return. I’m not sure that day will ever come; there are many other paths to be explored in the world. But if it does, I believe we will both have the feeling that we are going back home.