Waiting for a bed and city moose

Greetings from Anchorage.....

It is Monday morning around 7:30AM. I am having a hard time with the time change. Walter is back at work today so I have all day to explore by myself.

Aaron and Christy Carone were here Saturday. They flew in Friday night and are renting an RV with Christy's parents. It was good to see them. We didn't have much time to hang out, but Walter did show them Anchorage. We went to Earthquake Park. The park has a big drop off area caused by the earthquake in the 1960s. I was expecting to see some damaged buildings- but as Walter says- it has been 40 years and the stuff has been fixed. We went to see where the salmon run in downtown Anchorage. Some of the stuff I read said you might see bears there. Unless the bears are REALLY hungry and love to be around humans, I highly doubt one would see a bear there. Lots of people fly fishing. Ship Creek is right beside downtown and flows into Cook Inlet. Not very deep. After we dropped off Aaron and Christy we went walking around downtown Anchorage. Every weekend in the summer there is a big market area. Walter and I have concluded that the market is a big tourist trap for the cruise line passengers. We visited the start of the Iditarod Dog Race. It is hard to imagine that there is that much snow in downtown for there to be dog sledding. We decided to go to the zoo. The zoo is located north of downtown. If you are an old, dying, or disabled animal- you get sent to the Anchorage Zoo!!! The Amur Tigers were 17 years old. In the wild they live to like 15 years. The sign said that the zoo was trying to make the tigers "as comfortable as possible." I guess so since all they did was lay there. I don't even know if they were breathing. There is a big debate about the elephant at the zoo. Its mate just died and "Maggie" is said. She fell and refused to get up. Up until a couple of days ago Maggie had to were a sling to make here stand. When we saw her, she didn't look like a happy elephant. She was very gaunt looking. Some people say she needs to be taken to a warmer climate and be around other elephants. There was one moose there- must be pretty stupid to be caught and put in a zoo when his relatives are roaming freely right outside of the zoo! We did come across an exhibit that had these birds that Walter and I have seen around town. I think they are grackles, but they are much bigger, have a longer tail, and have a white belly. Of course the exhibit was the only one in the zoo to not have the name of the animal! We then decided to drive up to a lookout. The mountains are everywhere and are so beautiful. The ones closest to Anchorage, the Chugach Mountains, have snow at the very top. The mountain range to the northwest are huge and are all snow. That is where Mount McKinley is. (Or you can call it Denali!) We decided to walk a little on Powerline Pass Trail. It wasn't cold, cold. There were people everywhere, most of them looked like experts at hiking and biking. We tried to stay out of their way! We walked for about 15 mins along a horse trail and then came along Powerline Pass. As the name implies, the trail follows the huge powerlines that cut through the valley. The trail was beautiful. I could just imagine all of the animals that were out there waiting for me to love on them. It would be a great place to take a chair and a good book and sit all day. As were walking back, Walter noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. There was a female moose just hanging out. She looked so cute. She was eating and walking in and out of the evergreen trees. I was so happy we finally saw our first moose. It only took 24 hours to see! We then went to dinner at the Moose's Tooth and stuffed ourselves to celebrate. Moose's Tooth is a local pizza place and micro brew. AWESOME! We then went out and drank with the locals. Some of the true locals are very scary looking and look like they are drunk pretty much most of the day. It is unbelievable the amount of homeless people there are here in Anchorage! Most of them look like Inuits. How can you survive if you are homeless in Anchorage?

Sunday we went to a great place to eat lunch- Snow City Cafe. Again, awesome food! We then went to the history and art museum. Not much to those! We then took Bob to the park. We are trying to get Bob use to being around others. We harnessed him up and out we went. He did really well! At first there were too many people and dogs for him to relax. We then found a quite place along the Coastal Trail overlooking the mud flats. He loved it. There was some tall grass there and he just sat and watched everyone. I plan on taking him there again today. After about 45 min. Bob decided he was done and (no lie!!!) walked over to his carrier, got it, and laid down as if he was telling us it was time to go. We couldn't believe it! So we went home.

This morning I had to get up and take Walter to work. Thinking it would be an uneventful trip, I didn't take the camera. After dropping him off, I came up to an intersection. A fairly busy intersection, and there in the middle was a moose!!! I am getting the feeling that they aren't smart animals. This was a male moose- really big antlers. He was just hanging out- didn't care about the cars around him. Didn't look scared. I think he had just woken up! He casually walked across the intersection and went on down the street. Too funny! Now I am waiting for a bed to be delivered. Who knows what time the bed will show up. It was suppose to be here 3:00PM Friday. So, I sit and wait!

Hope you like the pictures to the side. The one of Chris Ruff and Pres. Bush is so neat! Take care!