Friday, January 1, 2010

The Alaskan Update, Day 1

Between all the turbulence, flying at a low altitude, a stopover for fuels, and sitting next to a lady who was flying up to Alaska in order to marry a guy she hasn’t see in over 30 year, you could say it has already been an interesting trip. Due to the above reasons (well, maybe not the lady), our flight landed 2 hrs later than it was supposed to (touchdown at 3:15am) and we got to our hotel by 4am, Alaska time. Phew what a day! It’s true, travel days are NOT rest days.

The good news is that Alicia and I made it here just fine and so did all of our luggage! We opted to sleep in and ski later in the day. We met at 11:45am to head out and find some breakfast and ended up at Snow City Café. If you are ever in Anchorage, I suggest that you eat at least one breakfast there. Go for the B.O.B. (best of both benedicts), I highly recommend it.

After breakfast, we took the scenic route (err…which way to I go??) to Kincaid Park, finally arriving sometime around 2:30. The skiing was incredible! I had heard a lot of talk about all the shoveling that was being done, but if they did shovel, those guys did a great job. Totally race ski conditions and super fast snow. Kincaid park looks (and skis) totally different when it isn’t 30 below zero. Alicia and I had a nice hour of cruising around the many trails that Kincaid Park has to offer. Our initial goal was to head down by the ocean and ski alongside the beach, but I have some problems with directions (ummm…see above driving reference) and soon we ended up many kilometers from where I was expecting to be. Oh well, at least it was a scenic route!


Our next goal (or at least mine) was to track down a moose. The ski trails were littered with tracks and every corned brought a new hope that we might run into one. Unfortunately each time I thought I saw a moose, it turned out to either be a dark stump, or some guys skiing in a brown jacket. After skiing through tunnels, by the biathlon range, back through some more tunnels, and through the cross country stadium, we ended our ski failing both goals. We didn’t make it down to the water’s edge and we didn’t see a moose. Bummer.


THEN…as we crossed the parking lot towards the bunker, right there in the midst of all the wax trailers and Swix banners, were two moose just chomping away on the tree. Success!!



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