Day 28 - Anchorage

Day 28  -  Photographs and Memories!

We chose another i-hop for brunch again today as we are meeting another of Earl's friends from the Milepost.  Our GPS on my phone took us to the 'nearest' one but it turns out it was not the nearest one but we managed to rendezvous with Gerrianne anyway.  We had a good visit, with Earl and Gerryianne getting caught up with what's happening in their lives. 

It is still raining so we asked Jerrianne what was the one must do thing in Anchorage that was not outdoors.  She suggested the Museum of Anchorage at the Rasmussen Centre.  They happen to have a display on right now called Portraits of Alaska and Earl had just purchased that book at a bookstore in Steward.  So off we went, leaving our little guy behind in the parking lot that we will come back later to retrieve. 

This museum is absolutely amazing!  Their are two wings and four floors and it is absolutely jam-packed with art, history and culture.  We started at the top, and those who know me will know why it took us hours to just do two exhibits!  I read every single little piece of information because it was so interesting.  These two exhibits were on two aspects of the history of flight in Alaska.  They had tablets with information, posters, videos, displays.....I was in heaven.  Then we started on the next floor and this display was on loan from the Smithsonian about the native peoples of Alaska and Russia - making a comparison and an ancestral link!  Again, so much to look at and read.  So we were now hours into looking, but Earl had an appointment to do a voice-over at the Milepost for a video for the website and we had not found the display we came to see!  Earl went off to find it and reported back that it was on the second floor so I reluctantly tore myself aware from the Smithsonian presentation and went with Earl to see the Portraits of Alaska.

All I can say is wow!  The pictures just took our breaths away, brought tears to our eyes and we were in awe at the talent of this photographer.  We had briefly looked at the book Earl bought, but seeing these photos life-size was amazing.  This photographer started taking a portrait a day, four years ago and has not missed a day since.  They are not snapshots but posed portraitures of people in their own environment.  The introductory information board said all the pictures were of Alaskans from all walks of life and put all Alaskans on the same level from the homeless man to the executive.  It also shows Alaska and its people in "all the three seasons  ~ pre-winter, winter, post-winter!"  If you get a chance to see this exhibit or get the book, do so - it is a very impressive body of work and Earl especially found it very inspiring.

We would have liked to have seen all the displays but Earl has a job to do so we flagged down a taxi to get back to our rig in the Home Depot/IHOP parking lot.  This was a treat.  Our taxi driver was terrific, we chatted, sang together, and tried our voice-over voices.  He has a great radio voice like Earl does and we sure had fun on that trip across town.  A big shout-out to Clint Wood (not Eastwood), taxi drive extroadinaire who got us back to our rig (even though we couldn't remember the names of one of the streets!!!) and put smiles of our faces too!

While Earl recorded his voice doing the narration for the Milepost video, I tried to make friends with my computer!  I did figure out how to save things to my external drive however we have 52,000 pictures and it's going to take awhile. 

So, we finished up at Milepost Land and found our new quarters for the night - much cleaner and friendlier.  We had a relaxed night with some games and guitar playing.  It has cleared up a little so maybe the rain will stop for awhile. 

Tomorrow, we are going to get some laundry done, then head back out of Anchorage, this time on the Glenn Highway towards Valdez.  We were going to go to Whittier and take the Ferry but the cost is much more than we though ($450+) and the weather on the coast is very rainy so we opted for the inland route and our bedtime prayers include some for sunny skies.