The second day in Anchorage began with cloudy skies with a temperature of 43 degrees and 81% humidity. The winds were mild at 4.6 mph and even though it looked like it might rain, it never did in town.
Anchorage is the gateway to adventure with many optional trips to see Mt. McKinley (Denali), North America's highest peak at 20,310 feet in elevation. The park and reserve has 6 million acres. Also notable is the fact that Anchorage has the second highest tidal surges in the world. According to the Captain, there is a 9 meter or over 27 feet change in the tides daily, and that was why we had to wait for the gangway to be re-located before coming back onboard yesterday as well as today. Looking down at the shoreline, all we saw was silty mud reminding us of the Bay of Fundy.
Catching up on backed up days with photos and reports, we stayed onboard until 11:30am. We joined the shuttle for a ride with a funny young man that talked all the way to town. He mentioned that the Zaandam was the last ship of the cruise season, and he sounded really happy to be heading back home to Florida. Then he proceeded to remind everyone that 4pm was the last shuttle back and please do not miss it. We decided he must have been a "foodie" because all he talked about was his favorite foods in town. Donuts were on top of the list as were a bunch of breweries and restaurants. He happened to recommend the place we dined yesterday, saying they had a killer toasted cheese sandwich full of crab. The funny thing was he was so wrapped up with food descriptions; he missed the turn into downtown. Oh well, we got more of a tour of the city. As we got off of the bus, he was still talking about preferring sautéed onions over raw ones. Some folks eat to live, while others live to eat. That's what makes the world go round.
This time at the drop-off point, we did go inside the civic center to find a motherlode of maps and booklets. We are going to save some of these in case they stop printing them. Then we headed off to see the JC Penney building, which was a large 4 - story shopping mall with all the modern stores you might see worldwide. Strange that we never noticed it before, but yesterday on the ride back to the ship, we spotted most of the crew members had bags from their favorite stores....mostly shoe stores. We did not need anything, so we just strolled every floor and went back outside where the air was cooler. They keep the stores and malls way too warm in our humble opinion.
On the way to the restaurant, we passed some souvenir shops that we missed yesterday. With the bear pendant in mind that one of us saw yesterday, we figured we would see that line of jewelry elsewhere. And yes, we did. But the same marble pendant was priced higher than in the Ulu Factory. At least $15 more. Looking further, we went into Trapper Jack's Trading Post to find the purple version of the pendant there. And the price was right and now it is mine - a nice reminder of our 2 day stay here.
Since our lunch was so good yesterday, we went back to the 49th State Brewing Co. It was pretty full once again, but we did find seats at the end of a 6-top table. Today we ordered the same Belgium beers and shared a platter of nachos with chicken, which was nice for a change. Next to us, there was a group of ladies that were sharing desserts. Two of them were working on their bread pudding drizzled with vanilla sauce and topped with a generous scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. We ordered one of the same to share as well. The pudding/cake was warm and tasted so good with the ice cream.
Finding our way back to the shuttle, we were back onboard by 3:30pm. Doing some research with all of the printed material we had gathered, we read that Alaska is big....we knew that. It has 570,374 square miles and has as much shoreline as the rest of the United States combined. And the list of mammals is long and bears repeating. They have beavers, 3 types of whales, 3 types of bears, porpoise, caribou, moose, elk, lynx, marmots, goats, sheep, and walrus. A few more for the list are porcupine, fox, otters, and wolves. Birds include bald eagles, hawks, kingfishers, oystercatchers, cormorants, falcons, ducks, ptarmigan, hummingbirds, magpies, kittiwakes, owls, puffins, ravens, blue heron, and Sandhill cranes. And we are certain we missed a few such as a variety of sea gulls.
The Captain came on with his late afternoon talk and described the dredging vessels that worked all through the night doing their job. We have never seen these vessels close enough to see how they operate. Now they were directly below our veranda. The best way to describe them is that they act like a huge vacuum cleaner, sifting the silt from the bottom of the bay. There were more than one too. Then the Captain apologized for the changing of the gangway during both days and went into some details about the tidal fluctuations. The ship will be heading back past Homer, where he will pick up a pilot for the Gulf of Alaska sailing. We will have 700 nautical miles to reach Glacier Bay in 2 days. He warned about high winds and 6-to-10-foot waves as we head out to sea. But promised it will not be as bad as the ride here. We did watch the sail away from our veranda, but the cold winds drove us back inside.
Dinner warmed us up with hot tomato soup, tasty spring rolls (our favorite), and a salad with beets. Pork belly and short ribs were our mains, but no dessert. The bread pudding at lunch was so rich, we had to skip dessert tonight.
Rock Britannia was the entertainment by the singers and dancers this evening. A rerun from the first two 7-day cruises we did, we are sure the hits from the 60' to the 80's wowed the crowd.
Really looking forward to 2 full days at sea to re-energize.
Bill & Mary Ann
