July 24-25, 2018
Alaska
Big, breathtakingly beautiful and wildly bountiful with unspoiled wilderness, mountain grandeur and immense wildlife. It is believed that the first Alaskans migrated from Asia to North America between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago during an ice age that lowered the sea level and created a 900 mile land bridge linking Siberia and Alaska. In 1741 the Danish explorer Vitus Bering, employed by Peter the Great of Russia, makes his third trip to North America and becomes the first European to set food on Alaska. Since the early 1980s, Alaska’s economy has been fuelled by oil. Nearly 90% of the state’s general fund revenue comes from taxes on oil and gas production. Thanks to oil, residents do not pay state tax on income, sales or inheritance. Alaska has 600,000 inhabitants, and 300,000 of them live in Anchorage.
Anchorage
The flight from Juneau to Anchorage took a little more than an hour, and it was a beautiful flight over glaciers and ocean.
Anchorage was founded in 1915 due to the Alaskan Railway, and is a young city as the average age is around 32. We took the city bus from the airport to downtown, and the Airbnb was located centrally on 10th Avenue. After having settled in we headed out to explore the city, and tested two local breweries.
July 25, 2018
Downtown itself is not much of anything, and as we weren’t in museum mood, we decided to rent bicycles and cycle the 25 miles/40 km Costal Trail despite a little drizzle of rain.
It was a nicely paved trail along the ocean, and you can say that Anchorage is a big city in the wilderness by looking at this sign!
The sign is actually correct, because when we stopped to put on our rain pants, we came across a young moose.
Shortly thereafter Andy had a flat tire, so we decided to turn around and go back to where the trail meets the road to call the bike shop to pick us up. Luckily, some nice, handy guys came by and they offered to help, as they had the expertise and tools to change the tube in the tire, so we could bike back to the bike shop and return the bikes.
We had dinner at the 49th State Brewery, where Andy tried a yak burger, which didn’t taste as gamey as expected.
