This weekend and I, Kyle went to Alyeska in Girdwood. It's about an hour south of Anchorage on the Seward Highway. The drive is nice. Girdwood? Not so much. It makes Polk City look like a decent town. It's almost what is referred to up here as "bush living." That means that you have to either travel to Anchorage to do your shopping or get things delivered.
At least I got some good pictures out of it all!
When Kyle's family comes up in June, we're going south on a glacier day cruise. Kelly emailed me a few links for us to look at and decide if we want to go to Kenai or Prince William Sound.
So we were looking at them and I was reading off the differences to Kyle when the following conversation took place...
Me: Which one do you want to do? I think Kenai would be more fun because there's more wildlife down there.
Kyle: No. I want to go on the other one. I don't want to see animals, I want to see ice. I want to stare at ice.
Me: Come on, which one?
Kyle: Prince William Sound. I like to stare at ice. In fact, I think I'm about to go stick my head in the freezer and look at the ice trays.
Me: Funny you say that, I was about to tell you to go do that.
We're going to Kenai (I hope!)
We've been looking (ok, I've been looking) at some tourist-y websites lately. One of them was sent to me by Kelly so we could look at the different day cruises and see which we liked best. After we looked at those, I continued to look around the site to see what they said about Alaska because the site was said to be written by Alaskans.
Clearly they are in a different part of Alaska that we are.
They recommended hiking boots for day-to-day wear. Yes, hiking boots are a good idea...if you're hiking. Day-to-day you can wear whatever shoes you want. I wore flats yesterday.
They also recommended wearing layers in the summertime. Seriously? Layers in 60 degrees? I'll be wearing a bathing suit. I haven't worn layers in months. Kyle hasn't worn his thermals in weeks and has worn short sleeved shirts for the past month or so. (Short sleeves to work all this past week.)
Their packing list includes light winter cap/gloves/scarf. Cap? You might want one. Scarf? A light one might be good. Gloves? I don't even know where my gloves are. You don't need them unless you're coming in Dec. - Feb. If you come then, I'll call you an idiot.
I realize we haven't spent a summer here but Anchorage is like any other city, I promise. It's not some wilderness destination. In the summertime, it's known as Los Anchorage (like Los Angeles, get it?) There are lots of places to hike and explore but if you're hanging out in the city, you don't need this stuff. It's like going to Tampa on a chilly day. (Anchorage is pretty comparable to Tampa.)
So there. Bring your normal clothes, hiking boots if you so wish. And lotion. I don't know if it's this dry in the summertime but I've gone through more lotion this winter than I normally do in a whole year. (I'm only slightly exaggerating.)
