Anchorage, Alaska

Good morning, my friends, and Happy Fourth of July to all who celebrate. We find ourselves in Anchorage this morning.

We had about 150 miles to drive yesterday. We're backtracking over roads we've already traveled. We skipped by Anchorage on our way south. We wanted to see Seward and Homer before the Fourth. Apparently, fisher people show up in droves over the holiday, and we hoped to avoid that. Both places were already crowded, and so I'm glad we missed the worst of it.

So all of that to say I didn't take a lot of pictures along our route. Of course, the mountains are always present pretty much everywhere we've been on this trip. We drove through a large area of burn scar yesterday.

It served to remind us that there are a number of wildfires burning in Alaska right now. We've been lucky so far, passing through the fire areas ahead of the fires. I'm watching the reports carefully. There aren't many roads to choose from when traveling across the state, and so it's important to keep track of where the road closures are. Wherever there were open meadows, we scanned the area looking for wildlife. We didn't see any.

When we reached Anchorage, we drove past our hometown grocery store. Of course, we headed there right away to get a few things we'd missed on our last shopping trip.

For one thing, we needed some vanilla ice cream because I was in the mood to bake a pie. I brought some of my homemade pie fillings from home. This is a sweet cherry pie for two, made with cherries from our trees. It made me a little homesick thinking the cherries will be ripe for picking any day now. We've told the neighbors to pick all they want.

When the pie was finished, we headed over to one of my must-do bucket list items for Anchorage...the Potter Marsh boardwalk trail. Here's a little information about it.

We took along some insect repellant, but we didn't really need it. It was windy on the trail, and that kept the mosquitos at bay.

And what a marvelous resource this is for the locals. It extends about half a mile, heading off in two directions.

We saw a moose munching on the grass along the way.

There was a duck in the water nearby. I tried to get his picture, but it didn't turn out. I was shooting into the sun, and so it was only in silhouette when I looked at it. We also noticed this little bird inside one of the many birdhouses posted along the trail.

We walked the full length of the trail. Standing at the far end, you can see where it turns a corner and heads off in the other direction at the top of the image below.

Our shadow selves were happy to be there. We enjoyed this easy trail so much, we'll probably visit again before we leave Anchorage.

When we headed back to our Jeep, I noticed yet more hogweed growing in the parking lot. Let me just say I've appreciated those of you who warned me off of the hogweed. Because it's growing virtually everywhere we've been, I did a little research about the hogweed. As it turns out, what we're seeing is the "common" hogweed." It is harmless. It is less tall than the poisonous "giant" hogweed. What we've seen grows to about waist height in most places. Giant hogweed can grow to 20 feet.

Also, the leaves are different. Common hogweed has a rounded leaf leaf like the one below:

Whereas, "giant" hogweed has a more spiky leaf.

With appreciation to those of you who warned me about the hogweed, so far, so good. Now that I know the difference, I'm watching for it. All we've seen is the benign common hogweed so far, but it's good to be able to tell one from the other.

We have five days in Anchorage (four now). There are a couple of hikes we want to check out. Our next destination was to be Chugach State Park. As it turns out, it's only about a half hour drive from where we are, and so we'll probably visit that on a day trip. There is a botanical garden here, and certain restaurants come recommended. So we'll have plenty to keep us busy for the next several days. As for today, we haven't made up our minds yet. You'll have to check in tomorrow if you want to know how we spent our first full day in Anchorage.

If you're like me, you're finding it difficult to feel very celebratory this 4th of July. If you're protesting today, please stay safe. I'm still optimistic we'll come out the other side of this, and I truly believe the sycophants in Congress have more to fear from their constituencies than they do from the cretin in the Whitehouse. Nevertheless, I applaud those of you out there making good trouble.