Anchorage Alaska

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Today is the start of the last leg of the trip. No problems all this morning, our pre arranged coach trip from the boat at Whittier to Anchorage.. 60 miles away went off without a hitch. We picked up the rental car, another Chevy Cobalt at the airport and off we went. Anchorage is about the size of Geelong 250,000 pop if that’s a fair comparison. Its pretty flat, has some big shopping centres. Although the temp is 11 degrees and sunny, many people are in T shirts (but not us). The traffic appears to be like Canada, that is, much less than the continental US. It doesn’t feel like we are in the US... but we are, the nearby FBI Building proves that! We saw Mt McKinley this afternoon from the bayfront, 250 miles away and its big and pretty clear, 20,000 feet (three times higher than Mt Kosciusko). Anchorage is surrounded by the usual snow capped mountains like all recent cities we have visited.
We saw people flying very large kites this afternoon in a little park - boy were they big kites (see the picture). Right next to this in the front yard of a house on the corner was reindeer in a very large aviary cage, it looked like someone’s private property; its antlers were about half grown and were covered in soft brown velvet, passers by all stopped for a look.
I have forgot to mention over the last few days the time that it gets dark at night, around here - try 11.10pm…. thank you - it’s weird…. and back on the ship its was just as strange trying to get used to going to bed when its daylight. Tomorrow we are off to Denali Nat Park and the sunset there is 11.40pm !
I have also forgotten to mention the big winter event up here, the Iditorod Dog Sled Race held in each Feb. Its 1100 miles from Anchorage to Nome and its got sponsors, takes between 10-15 days, and the dogs all use compulsory boots to combat from sharp ice and rough conditions - how about that. !!

(Enlarge kite photos for real size)

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