July 21 - Tourists in Anchorage

Today was a day to play the tourists in the "Big City" of Alaska, Anchorage.  It was a rainy and overcast day, so it was a good day to spend indoors.  We just rode downtown, from our excellent "Bed & Breakfast",  and parked the bikes in a parking garage.

There were some building-size "Save the Whales" type of murals, and they look really life-like.  

We went to Anchorage's excellent small museum of "Aircraft Heritage of Alaska", and really enjoyed it.  

Then, we took a city tour on a "trolley", to get a feel for the downtown, and then walked back to the areas we liked the most.  

We spent most of the afternoon in the city "Art and History Museum", which has a fabulous display of early artist's works on Alaska subjects and an even more fabulous display of native people's living, clothes, hunting, etc. 

This museum really gives a feeling of the development of Alaska, from early times until about the time of the Alaska Pipe Line and the 1964 earthquake.

Driving around Anchorage, one of the things that fascinated us was the number of "sea planes" or "float planes".  Anchorage claims to have the highest concentration of float planes in the world, and after seeing them everywhere on a large and a small lake close to the airport, we believe it.  

It was interesting that the Control Tower which controls take-offs and landings for the land-based planes is built in a spot near the lakes so that it can see and control the float plane take-offs and landings also.

By the way, today my odometer turned over 5,000 miles since leaving Albuquerque, so we have ridden quite a ways.  (Remember that Norm rode about 1,900 miles to get to Albuquerque from Ohio, to join me.)

Tomorrow, we start our journey to Fairbanks, with an intermediate stop in Talkeetna.

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