Alaska: Quick Visit to Anchorage

We arrived at the Anchorage Westmark Hotel fairly late in the day on July 15th.  From our eleventh floor room we had a nice view of the harbor.

There was just enough time to take a short stroll from the Westmark to a park a few blocks away.  There were flowers everywhere and they were Alaskan sized and colorful.

We also stumbled upon a mural of swimming Orcas painted on an old building. Yes that's a real truck in the parking lot in front of the painting.

I guess you just never know what you will find on the streets of Anchorage.

The following morning (July 16th) saw us walking to the Anchorage Museum for an excellent tour of their native history section.




The all-glass front of the museum looks pretty cool from the inside looking out as well.

  Our guide for the morning was superlative and she took us through the histories and development of some of the main native tribes such as the Aleut, Athabascan, Eskimo, Tlingit, and Haidas.

we saw dioramas of native life,

examples of the native art of scrimshaw,



and once again gorgeous example of ceremonial masks.

 

The museum also had a hall full of working scientific gadgets that were fun for both kids and the kid in us older folks as well.   Here one of our road scholars gets ready to encase himself in a giant bubble.

We would have loved to stay longer, but we had to get back to our hotel by 11:30 in order to board our coach for the trip to Seward. That will be the subject of the next entry.

Till then