Anchorage with the Fam

So my parents and my younger brother, Joe, flew up with me as far as Anchorage. They're staying through Thursday night, while I fly out to Atqasuk for the first time tomorrow. It's been on my parents' bucket list to come to Alaska. You can cross that one off, Mom and Dad! Although you probably will want to come back and take a trip to Denali.... or you should want to anyway. Also to visit me.

I got to sit shotgun all week because this is my city. I've been here a grand total of once before this trip, but I've got a great memory and sense of direction. So I got to be navigator while Mom rode in the back with my brother Joe. Also, I am now officially a resident of Alaska.

Anyway, here's a little tidbit about what we've been doing and seeing in and around Anchorage.

Day One: Anchorage Museum

We landed in Anchorage around 2:30 am, so we headed to a hotel where we crashed for a few hours. Funny story, my mom was like, oh we arrive on Saturday and booked the hotel starting on Saturday. The catch? We arrived 2:30 Saturday morning, which is really Friday night in the hotel. By the time she realized this problem, the hotel we were staying in for the rest of the trip was full. So we stayed in a cheap hotel for the first night and then moved into a different one. Complicated.

When we were up and ready for the day, we tried to go to my favorite brunch place here in Anchorage, Snow City Cafe. Only it's super popular and the wait was long and my parents were starving, so we found a new awesome brunch place, The Solstice Cafe. It was delicious and I ate reindeer sausage and eggs, so I was pretty darn happy.

Then we walked down the street a long way to the Anchorage 5th Avenue Mall. This is not because I had a sudden desire to go shopping, but rather because I needed to get my cell phone and pick up one for my friend, Danielle, who is also moving to the village. Danielle is meeting me in the airport tomorrow to fly to Atqasuk; she didn't do a few days around Anchorage like I did. So I had to get her phone for her. It was complicated, but I walked away from the store with my brand new iPhone 5S (I am now #teamiphone and loving it) and promises that I could pick hers up from a different store.

The best part of the day was our visit to the Anchorage Museum. We caught an amazing tour where they talked about the different native cultures, and then a second tour where they talked about the history of Alaska. I learned a ton about the different cultures and the history of the state. For example, the Russians all left the state after the United States bought it, so any Russians that live here today came over much later. Also, a fun fact that I learned on my April visit, during the Great Depression the United States Government tried to transplant a lot of people to Alaska to farm. I don't know about you, but we kind of glossed over Alaska in U.S. history. My knowledge was pretty much summed up as it was the 49th state (because Hawaii Five-O) and there was a gold rush at some point.

The Anchorage Museum also has an awesome interactive section designed for kids. I got a bunch of awesome ideas for teaching things like topography in the classroom, as well as getting to make a giant bubble around myself. Plenty of adults were playing in this part of the museum, so I blended right in!

Day Two: South of Anchorage

First we drive into the town of Whittier, Alaska. This town is where a lot of the cruise ships leave, and it also has this really nifty one-way tunnel. They decided cars needed to be able to drive in and out of Whittier, so the train now shares its tunnel with the cars. At the top of the hour you can drive out of Whittier, and at the half hour you can drive into Whittier.

Whittier Tunnel

After Whittier, we headed to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, which is by far my favorite thing to do in Anchorage. They rescue a bunch of animals who have been injured or orphaned throughout the state. Most of the animals that you see when you visit were saved because they were found and brought to the Center before they could starve. It's a great place to see the Alaskan wildlife up close, more so than the zoo, but still not have to worry about being attacked by a moose or bear because they're on the other side of the fence.

Elk

Bald Eagle

Baby Moose! 

Joe Boxer the Brown Bear

These are just a few pictures. I may have gone a little overboard. We also went to church in this gorgeous chapel in Girdwood, which is a ski area south of Anchorage. Our Lady of the Snows has Catholic Mass on Sundays at 6pm and Church of Later Day Saints service at 9am. Pretty awesome.

Chapel of Our Lady of the Snows

Day Three: Zoo and North of Anchorage

So the Conservation Center wasn't enough animals for us, which meant we had to go to the zoo. Mostly to see the polar bears and wolves. It was a nice zoo, but not what you see in the lower 48 (what us Alaskans call the rest of the U.S.) These animals were all found in Alaska, with a few exceptions that live other places with similar climate. The polar bears napped the entire time, but the tigers got into some sort of dominance battle and the red foxes and porcupine had just been fed.

After the zoo we headed out north of Anchorage. I had been this way in April and wanted to show my parents Hatcher's Pass. It was gorgeous, but rainy, so our view of the Mat-Su valley was not as spectacular as I would have hoped. It was still gorgeous.

Little Su River

View of the Matanuska-Susitna Valley

Day Four: Heritage Center

Which brings us to today. I got my official Alaska temporary driver's license. You know, a paper one. They'll mail me my real one in a few weeks. Then, we headed to the Native Heritage Center. This is an awesome place to visit, so be sure to go if you're ever in the Anchorage area. They have presentations about native games, information about the native groups, dancing, tons of exhibits, and a loop that shows all of the traditional dwellings.

I don't pretend to know anything about native Alaskan culture yet, but that's a huge part of the reason that I decided to move here. I'm so excited to learn about the culture and to help my students learn to value it so that they pass it on to their children some day. Up in the North Slope where Atqasuk is located, are the Inupiaq people. One of the most impressive things we saw was a demonstration of traditional native games, ones that are now part of competitions. One game required the person to lean back on one hand while on the ground, balance, grab your opposite foot with one hand, and push up to kick a ball suspended over your head with the other foot. One of the demonstrators could launch himself into a full one-handed hand-stand and kick the ball that was suspended over his head while he was standing. It was absolutely amazing.

We also saw some sled dogs. They aren't pure-bred Husky like we usually picture. Sled dogs are mutts, but they were so excited to pull the cart. They all hopped up and started barking with excitement when they realized they were going to have a chance to run. They even had puppies that were only a few weeks old.

Lower Whale Jaw- Used to mark village sites on the flat tundra

Sled dog puppies and Mama taking a nap

Hooked up and ready to run!

I'm going to call this post finished. When you hear from me next, I'll be out in Atqasuk for the first time and you'll get to see some very different landscape in my pictures! Then, it's back to Anchorage for a few days for inservice training, back to the village for more training there, and then school starts! Hard to believe it's that time already!