Anchorage

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About 30 miles before we reached Anchorage things began to change rapidly. Instead of country roads and trading posts we began to see expressways, shopping centers and subdivisions. Anchorage is a modern city of about 300,000 people and looks less like the last frontier and more like a city in the lower 48. We heard the joke here is that Anchorage is a great place to live -- you are in a modern city with lots of things to do, yet you are only 30 minutes from Alaska.
Anchorage sits at the top of Cook Inlet and, like most of Alaska, is surrounded by gorgeous mountains. The southern boundary of the city is Turnagain Arm, an arm of Cook Inlet, so named by Captain Cook because it was another dead end in his quest for the Northwest Passage and he was forced to "turn again". The Seward Highway, which follows the Arm for the first 50 miles or so is one of the most scenic in Alaska and has been designated a National Forest Scenic Byway. The Arm is home to the second largest bore tide in the world, second only to the Bay of Fundy in eastern Canada. Because the Arm is shallow and bordered by steep mountains, the visual effect of the incoming tide is claimed to be the most dramatic in the world. As we headed south toward Portage and Seward the tide was out and it looked like a sea of mud. On our return trip we'll try to time it so as to catch the incoming tidal bore.

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Photos

Downtown Anchorage
Could be anywhere in the lower 48.

Steam Engine #1
Beautiful restoration job. This engine was used in the Panama Canal construction project, then used for many years as a switch engine in the Anchorage terminal of the Alaska Railroad.

City Bike Path Running along the Shore
The city has hundreds of miles of bike paths. That's Cook Inlet in the background.

Turnagain Arm at Low Tide
But the high tide comes in with a vengeance.