Day 91: Anchorage Museum

July 14, 2014

It was a beautiful sunshiny day today!!! Blue skies, warm, beautiful mountains – still some snow on some of them. So glad to see the sun! A great way to celebrate our completion of 3 months of travel.

After a restful night in the parking lot of Girdwood Chapel, we pulled in the slides and headed for Anchorage. It was an uneventful drive which is what we like. Traffic was not bad. We went to to the new (and only) Cabela's in Anchorage. It is a lovely new store – pretty typical of Cabela's. It has a large parking lot and has a separate area for RV's to park and a dump station. The parking lot is a little unlevel so we actually drove up on some leveling blocks to avoid using our jacks. We don't use the jacks in parking lots for fear of damaging the asphalt.

After unhooking we began a futile effort of getting the cell phone operational again. The battery will not charge. We had another battery installed, but it wouldn't charge either. It indicates it is charging, but it does not. It has now been decided that the charging port is not working properly and cannot be repaired with any certainty that it will stay repaired. Therefore the recommendation is that we buy another new phone. Really. That phone is just 2.5 months old. But we will have to do something since that is also our internet hot spot. Frustrated! We will figure something out, but got tired of thinking about it.

So, we went to the Anchorage Museum at the Rasmuson Center. This is an excellent museum and so much more than an art museum. It has exhibits of history, science, art, art of the north, and a great hands on area - which was our favorite part. It currently also has an excellent exhibit on the earthquake of 1964 – this being the 50^th anniversary. There is also a very good section on the First Nations Peoples of Alaska. Admission is $15.00 and with our TourSaver book we got 2 for one, so this was a bargain. There are 4 stories of exhibits so if you plan to go allow plenty of time – most of a day.

Us in front of the museum

Many beautiful flowers line the sidewalks out front. Flowers like this always make us think of our mothers.

It is hard to imagine the devastation caused by the 1964 earthquake and tsunamis. It is also amazing how the communities we have visited have recovered.

Read the last sentence of the second paragraph. Probably not the best political decision ever made.

Anchorage, and the rest of Alaska, now have a very active earthquake and tsunami preparedness program.

This is a fascinating exhibit that allows you to make simulated "northern lights"

Another hands on exhibit lets you create a bubble around yourself.

This is a "gut parka" made from the intestines of sea lions, seal, whales, and bears. Several native cultures made similar clothing.

There is also an interesting exhibit about gyres.

Among the artwork in the gyre exhibit is this sculpture made from old plastic pieces.

After the museum it was back to Cabela's and dinner. In looking for a place to get Scout some exercise we found a great nature trail in front of the store. It is a wet land that extends across the road with lots of water foul and the cutest baby ducks. We all got a nice walk.

Met a few more fussy magpies on the nature walk.

Tomorrow we plan to visit the Alaska Native Heritage Center. It comes highly recommended and one person I know has been to Alaska 6 times and visited the center 5 times including again this year. We will keep you posted.