Relaxing to Renew & Restore

A couple pretty easy days came at just the right time! Yesterday we were on the train almost all day, arriving back in Anchorage about 7pm. We are staying downtown in a most charming place. The Voyager is part of the Captain Cook hotel across the street, a sleek modern high rise hotel with restaurants and several gift shops. Our place could not be more different, a squat 4-story hotel with only 38 rooms. We have learned that most older architecture here is similar to this, built under different regulations concerning earthquake-prone areas.  We are loving this place, a large roomy suite with a desk area, a reading area and a small kitchen -- and most of one wall is french doors opening to outside and looking out over Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet (with a stop light in between!).

We are within easy walking of all of downtown, and that is what we did today -- coming back home to take a nap! Marie, of course, has her usual "travel malady" of allergies and bronchial issues. So a day or two of rest is perfect. We have decided that one reason a person gets so worn out in a place like this is "sensory overload." Even the restful train ride yesterday was one of moose, eagles, mountains, glacier melt lakes and little get-away homesteads. The weather yesterday was totally different with cloud cover and dark, cloudy skies all day. We talked with people who were going on the Wilderness Tundra tour, but cannot imagine they saw Mt Denali at all, let alone the summit.

Today we went to the open air market which was huge. It seems like the tourists arrived yesterday! Anchorage does not have a deep sea port for the cruise ships, so the town looks very different from those ports with a line of jewelry shops leading from the ship into town. Probably most tourists are on a cruise vacation and visiting Anchorage as a side trip. Anyway, most must have been at the market today. There were so many types of Alaskan food and art works.

We bought one most unusual picture which supposedly took multi-years to do. We loved talking with this artist. I wish this picture could show how unusual this picture/process is. The colors include many ground stone fragments as well as "ordinary" ingredients such as octopus ink.

We also had a great conversation with Rod Perry, one of the original Iditarod racers. He raced in 1973 and the 1000 mile race took him 30 days. Today the race is the same distance and is covered in 7 days. Rod says the difference is the dog breeding for speed. There are only 11 of these original racers still living -- they have this booth to tell people about the race and be sure it doesn't become a distant memory. We were impressed by this "old-timer" never saying it was better or hardier back then, but mainly wanting to preserve the race into the future. His rescue malamute was also loveable.






We also went to find the quiviut shop, which is musk ox wool, but didn't end up buying any. This shop is a coop owner by 200 or so native Alaskan women from 20 remote coastal villages.  The huge musk ox sheds only 6-8 pounds of wool each year and this quiviut is used for scarves, hats and mittens handmade by these women. It is touted to be warm in cold weather, cool in warmer climes, non-itchy and machine washable & dryable. It is also super expensive!

We have a couple long, busy days coming up. Tomorrow is a mostly land tour from Anchorage where we expect to see more animals. Then we go to the airport to pick up a rent car as we leave Sunday at 6am for Seward to catch an all-day excursion to the Kenai Peninsula where we expect to see all sorts of marine life. We are told Seward is quite wonderful; unfortunately we have just the one day to be there.