Anchored Down in Anchorage

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Sunday morning, we headed to Walmart to stock up in readiness for our epic Alaskan road trip. Despite our best efforts, we managed to spend $80 on really sensible provisions. Sadly, Laura drew the line at jerky.
After breakfast (cornflakes - yawn!) we took the hotel shutttle into downtown Anchorage and spent a good few hours getting orientated. We are in Alaska during 'shoulder season' when the tourist trade starts to die off, but we were still surprised at just how quiet Anchorage was. It had the feeling of a little seaside town bedding down in time for winter, which was completely at odds with the high rise buildings (of which there are admittedly few) and the wide, modern streets. Apparently Alaska has a population of 1.2 people for every square mile and you definetly notice it, even in the "big" cities. It's also very quiet, no sirens, no loud music, no Big Issue sellers, it's actualy quite blissful.

Having visited the museum the day before, we started our visit with a trip the to mall. A fairly old, small mall it's true, but still large enough to hold a Hot Topic. Oh my god, Hot Topic. There was pleny of cultural exploration as well. We visited the oldest building in Anchorage, which was built in 1915 (closed) which marks the start of the Iditarod Trail. Then we made our way to the Oscar Anderson house - the oldest private residence in Anchorage (also 1915, also closed). It's strange to think that I've met people older than Anchorage. We managed to find the Captain Cook monument and a few Itarod sculptures too.

For lunch, we followed the recommendation of our Enterprise collection driver and headed to Humpy's. It took a while for our eyes to adjust to the gloomy interior, but we soon found our way to a booth at the back. The placed seemed rather familiar, and Laura realised that this was because it had featured on the legendary Man vs Food, which we had watched as part of our Alaska research. We were sat right by the Wall of Fame, but somehow this wasn't enough to convince us to undertake the $179 challenge (free if eaten in under 12 minutes.) Thanks to a further recommendation, Daisy tried a pint of the local favourite Alaskan Amber. At a genteel 7.8%, she limited herself to just the one, but it's a favourite for a reason. Yum.

After a couple of hours exploring we decided to head back to the hotel, we had grand plans of perhaps going for a swim, or going to the cinema, but we settled for getting in to our pj's and having yet another early night. It was awesome!

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