This morning was an awfully early morning. Pepsi woke us up at 5:15AM and wanted and then didn’t want to go to the bathroom. She’s been scratching herself more recently and we were a bit concerned about her and weren’t able to sleep after that so we got up, fed her, walked her, had breakfast and departed for Anchorage on the Parks Highway.
We drove for a about two and a half hours and turned onto the Talkeetna Spur Road and stopped at Kahiltna Birchworks where they make birch syrup (like maple syrup, but with birch sap). They had a short video on the production of the syrup and we saw the huge evaporator that they use.
After that we were hungry and stopped at the Flying Squirrel Bakery/Cafe for a smoked salmon, tomato and cream cheese bagel. Ruth had a tasty cappuccino. Yummy!
The town of Talkeetna was filled with tourists and we wandered through some gift shops and an outdoor market. This town is also accessible by train and appears to be part of a Princess Cruise line trip.
We returned to our van and drove non-stop to Anchorage enjoying the Chugach Mountains along the way. We are staying at the Ship Creek RV Park Campground right downtown in Anchorage. There appear to be many homeless people in Anchorage and when we inquired about it, the woman at the campground office said that Alaska doesn’t charge people for non-violent crimes anymore which basically means you can walk into a grocery store, fill a buggy with merchandise and walk out without fear of any consequences. I wonder how that works out for them. In any case, the campground appears safe, is very clean and full of new coaches and other RVs and we will be departing early tomorrow morning.
We got our oil changed at Jiffy Lube and did some quick shopping for dinner at Costco. A 3 pound BBQ’d chicken is only $4.99 here! Since it was still hot, we had it in the van in the parking lot. Some will be lunch tomorrow.
We drove through the downtown core to get an impression of Anchorage. We recognized the hotel we had stayed at when we were here in 2003 with Holland America as well as some of the streets. Anchorage is a mix of old and new buildings, some chic and some run-down.
