September 19 - Anchorage

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Dan and I worked out over dinner the string of small events that lead to our being at an amazing steak and seafood place for dinner. It started after breakfast when Dan went down stairs. He was looking at the stuffed bear in the lobby and got into conversation with the Bell-man about it when they started talking about our picking up a rental car. It was a very large brown bear. The bellman described the difference between a brown bear and a grizzly is its location. He suggested we call and see if Enterprise would pick us up because that is one of their amenities. Dan called and found out that the Airport location did not but we could transfer our reservation to another location and get picked up (saving us cab fare). We were able to do just that. We got a 4 door Silver Chevy Silverado (cousin to Blackie) with 4 wheel drive. We look like locals and have lots of cargo room. Best part is we got it for the same price as the one Dan ordered because they had too many of them and needed to get them rented out. While at the Enterprise place we discovered that we could return the truck at a different location closer to the airport for no extra charge and the cab fare would be half what we paid to get to the hotel. Bonus. We also go the scoop on some locations to do some of our shopping. Bell-man led to free ride to rental car. Rental car agent led to Walgreen's.

At Walgreen's while we were poking around I asked a local about a place for lunch. During the conversation I discovered that the Walmart we were going to next did not have groceries and that if we went to the one about 5 miles down the road we could get cheaper groceries and there were more restaurants. Walgreen's led us to bigger Walmart. Looking for bigger Walmart lead us to Gallo's Mexican restaurant. Driving around hungry and grumpy (grumpy was me, surprise surprise ) we found a Mexican restaurant with awesome food. The place didn't look like much from the outside but inside it was gaily decorated in wrought iron and other Mexican style elements. As we finished our meal. Dan got the attention of a restaurant employee in the dining room and started to chat with her. From her we got some suggestions for dinner. She recommended that we try Club Paris. It was known for their 4 in thick fillet mignon. After lunch we got our supplies, Dan dropped me off with them at the hotel (I wanted a nap in the worst way) and he went out for a little more exploring and to get gas for the truck. I was still napping when he got back and he settled in to dose off while watching the Giants play. The game started at 4:30 here. I woke up at 5 pm and we hit the hot tub for about 30 min, went back to the concierge lounge for cocktail hour (we had to bring our own drinks but food was free). Then we went out for dinner. The suggestion from Gallo's lead to window shopping down town. We saw a fir store that struck our interest and we stopped in. The owner a little Asian man of age (what age I couldn't guess) greeted us warmly. He was sweet and very funny. He was also a silver tongue devil. He said to Dan "with her figure I could make her look like a queen" to which Dan replied "and I would walk out a pauper". We chatted with the gentleman for a little bit before saying our good byes and going to dinner. The restaurant was very nice. The portions were very generous. The atmosphere was great and we didn't even have to dress up. We didn't last much past dinner. We were in bed at the same time although I didn't happen to notice when that was. It was a relaxing day.

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