Excited

Taken at Chicago O'Hare for RAP!

We've had two days in Anchorage now. Just stepping out of the hostel that first time yesterday was exciting enough! We were really in Alaska and we could tell! It was a similar feeling to the Great Wall of China and parts of Japan in some ways - somewhere Phileas had always wanted to go, although never realistically expected to visit.

There is definitely a particular atmosphere about this place. Anchorage is not an especially pretty town in itself but it IS very appealing to a far flung visitor like Phileas. It's grey, but what a delightful grey! Even though it's well above freezing and the snow hasn't fallen for a good while, paths are lined, and indeed formed, with compacted snow. Dirt and gravel has covered most of this ice so you hardly know it's there until chunks of the 'pavement' crack and crumble underfoot. Big 4x4s rumble past with their snow-stud wheels still on and drivers with big boots get out to visit parking lot cafes. Avenues are named after numbers and Streets addressed by single letters! How can this not add to Anchorage's frontier feel?!


After visiting tourist shops you might forget exactly where you are. The snowy mountain ridges behind the city quickly remind you you're in a very special place.

A large part of last night was taken up planning our next fortnight. Wider reading and note-taking progressed onto minute details and bookings. Phileas is extremely excited after securing a place on the Inner Passage (imagine a particularly excitable person with hot coals down their trousers, hopping from foot to foot waving an invisible banner high above their head with both arms); over three days sailing past fabled glaciers, rugged landscapes and, hopefully, exotic marine wildlife. That will be after another jaunt in the car. Can't wait to see what's ahead - maybe a gut big Mooooooooooooooooooooose!


Perhaps the closest we'll get to a Grizzly - thankfully, if some of 'em get this big! This one stopped growing in 1978.