A trip to Anchorage

Jeff had an industry trade show / conference to attend in Anchorage this week, so we got a nice 3-day / 2-night trip.  We had just been to the valley to grocery shop a week and a half prior, so it wasn't a necessary shopping trip, but I did take advantage of the opportunity...

There was an Army convoy headed East as we headed West.

The first day we went out walking around downtown near the hotel in just our sweatshirts.  It was sunny, in the 40's, and no wind.  Such a nice evening.

Jeff got a much needed haircut.  There's a real-life barber downtown Anchorage.
This 72-year-old German fellow did a great job,
and Jeff didn't even have to tell him what kind of hair cut he needed.

Dinner was at the Anchorage Hard Rock Cafe.
Interestingly enough, it's in the same building as the restaurant
where we had dinner on the first night of our honeymoon.  

Then we went as saw Fury.  Good movie.  Gory war movie, but good movie.

The next day, while Jeff was going to seminars and shaking down the trade show people for free stuff, I went shopping.

This little guy was shopping too.  Do you see the dog on the platform cart?
He was buying a very large screen TV.
Or maybe his human was buying it.  The dog didn't have a purse or pockets
in which to keep his preferred method of payment, so it was probably the human who bought it.
Surprisingly, they did not buy an RCA.

While at Costco I also saw a snow skirt in action.  No picture, but trust me that it was actually cute.  It was about knee length and she was wearing tights with it.

It seemed like each day got a little bit breezier than the last.  Day Two we walked about 3 or 4 blocks to go to lunch at the Glacier Brewhouse. While it was a bit too nippy for a coat-less walk, it was worth it.  I had the Thai Chicken Brick Oven Pizza and it was awesome!  "Rotisserie Chicken, toasted peanuts, pickled cucumbers, bean sprouts, tomato, fresh cilantro, Thai chili sauce"

Glacier Brewhouse menu

Just outside the Alaska Railroad terminal.  Unfortunately the gift shop was closed.
In Winter their gift shop is only open on Friday & Saturday...

These guys were in the lobby of the hotel.  

Jeff's last day at the event was a half day, so we headed out of town and went grocery shopping at the Eagle River Fred Meyer.

milk is much more reasonable in the valley than by where we live.
$3/gallon price difference.

wishing I had bought this stuff.
Took the picture to send to Mom - do you guys carry this in your store?

Well, this is a whole 'nother definition of "going grocery shopping"...
Fred Meyer has everything, not just groceries.
It also has a much better grocery section than Super WalMart,
so if you need to do some one-stop shopping, this is the place.

And this is Mt. McKinley (or Denali, if you don't want to sound like a tourist),
from just outside the Fred Meyer at Eagle River.
Mt. McKinley is a good 120 miles from Eagle River.
It's heavily edited because the mountain was so close in color to the sky.

All in all it was a good trip to the city.  Stay tuned for some photos from the Glenn Highway...