Saturday started bright and being a Saturday, Anchorage woke up a little later. As I had breakfast, looking out on 5th Ave, it was like most American cities I guess. There is a Starbucks one block up from the hotel, and it provided the weekend exercisers some place to go, so I watched a constant stream of joggers and power walkers in bright new sneakers jogging or walking clutching large styrene cups of coffee. After breakfast I sat in the lobby for a while checking my emails and watching the slow influx of American tourists from a cruse ship assemble while the bell hops dragged copious quantities of over stuffed luggage out to a waiting van to return them back to the ship. The assembling “cast” of this act had, according to their baseball caps and polo shirts ‘done’ Fairbanks and Anchorage. The girl from the tour company started calling them by groups out to waiting coaches.

We had nothing arranged for the first part of today, and as I needed a small battery for one of my cameras, I wanted to walk up 5th to the mall and call in Radio Shack. I wandered back up to the room and Feroz was up and on his way down to breakfast. I finished up sorting some emails and waited for Feroz to return. He had a couple of phone calls to make, to check on the arrangements with Phil Livingston, who, with other IFFR members and local Rotarians had arranged a BBQ for the whole group in the afternoon, along with a visit to the Alaska Air Museum at Lake Hood and a visit to a pilots shop to pick up some sectional maps for the flight down to Ketchikan and Seattle.

We set off for the mall, down 5th about 5 blocks away. Malls in America, are almost carbon copies of each other. Each mall has the same set of shops with only a few local store additions, so if you need a particular store, just ask for directions to the nearest Mall. There will almost always be a Foot Locker, American Outfitter, Sears or JC Penny…… I guess it used to be like that in the UK when every high street would have had a Woolworths, and of course Boots and maybe M & S.

Radio Shack didn’t stock the battery I needed, but the ever helpful staff pointed me in the direction of Stewart’s Photography on 4th and H. (531W 4Th Ave. – I can recommend them) Out of the mall, the streets were getting a little busier as Anchorage started its Saturday routine. We walked across to 4th and south down to H street, passing shops for the tourist. In some of these shops, you could buy anything from a baseball cap embroidered with the Alaskan flag to a full sized moose, complete with fake fur or even a full size bear for your hall way. Interspersed between the Moose and Bear shops were outlets selling real fur… from slippers to coats and cute little Native American dolls with real fur coats.

Stewart’s Photography was a friendly “Mom & Pop” type store, with lots of helpful staff and all those gadgets you never knew you needed until you saw them. I resisted in buying a new Canon 400mm lens that was on sale for less Dollars than Pounds in the UK (Hmm ….I might still have time to go back for it…) They had a collection of old cameras for sale and I recognised my first Canon SLR…. an aging AE1. I purchased a couple of batteries and collected a brochure on strobe  lighting before dragging Feroz away from another display case of cameras (He’s got more cameras then me already!).

We walked back towards the hotel, passing a street market that had been set up on a closed off road. All the stalls were art and design types, displaying everything from jewelry to paintings of Alaskan scenes to had crafted bags.

Back at the hotel, Phil had arranged for Steve to pick us up in his mini bus at 1:00 so we waited in the lobby for the others to assemble. By one we were all there and met up with Steve outside and another Rotarian who had brought along his SUV to take any overflow. We set off for Lake Hood less than a mile away. Lake Hood has around 200 seaplanes based there and is less then half a mile from the international airport….. which is less then half a mile from Merrill Field with around 800 GA aircraft based there…. which is less then half a mile from Elmandorf AFB. Four very busy airports within 2 miles of each other. In the UK, ATC get nervous if there are more than two aircraft within 10 miles of each other, let alone Military, Commercial, GA and Seaplanes all mixing it up in the same bit of sky.

A Plane departing Lake Hood tarmac runway

Steve took us out to Lake Hood, where we stood at the end of the hard runway, watching aircraft take off over our heads, and if we turned to look the other way, we could watch aircraft take off from the water. Back on the bus, we drove a little further round the lake, and were constantly reminded that vehicles must give way to aircraft taxing on the road by signs every few hundred feet.

Landing on Lake Hood

Aircraft are even parked in car parks outside offices and use the road to taxi to the runway!

One aviation museum looks pretty much like another to the layman, and I guess to me as well. I like old planes, but I prefer to see and hear them fly, than to stare at them hung from the celling on steel cables, which to me seem to hold them firmly to the earth, not aloft in the sky. I did find a nice outdoor jacket and was willing to hand over the required greenbacks….. but unfortunately the didn’t have my size, only small and large hippopotamus.

Slightly used control tower...... suitable for a garden gazebo for the pilot that has almost everything!

From the museum, we headed off to the pilots shop, which was stuffed full of things you never knew you needed. Most headed directly for the section containing the charts…. collecting handfuls of sectional maps for the next legs of the trip. Joop managed to find an fire extinguisher for his Malibu and others collected a variety others bits and pieces.

Leaving the pilot shop, we next stopped at the FBO, where Will and Mike had parked the aircraft. Will was having the engineers do a maintenance check, and in the process, the engineers had discovered cracks in two cylinders. Will wanted to stop by and check on the diagnosis. It was the news he didn’t wan to hear.. two new cylinders would be required. The engineers were trying to find two cylinders and Will had to check in with them at 9 the following morning.

We set off for the 20 mile drive up to Girdwood strip where Phil has his house and keeps his immaculately restored Beech Staggerwing. Bill had elected to fly from Merrill Field up to the strip so we would meet up with him there later.

We drove up Seward Highway that runs alongside Turnagain Arm, the upper stretch of Cook Inlet. Eventually we hit the turn off for Girdwood town and pulled off the highway onto dirt tracks that lead into Girdwood and Phil & Diana’s house.

Arriving at Phil & Diana's house

There was a warm welcome waiting for us, within minutes, everyone was talking and a really friendly atmosphere quickly developed. I stood talking for a while to Bill Hopper, the District Governor for District 5010 and finding out how Rotary was fairing in Alaska and Russia. Bill has the unenvialbe task of being DG for the biggest geographical district in Rotary, which is a challenge in itself, but when it straddles between Russia and Alaska, presents some unique challenges.

Good hospitality provided by Phil & Co.

By this time, what had started as a nice day, had now turned into steady rain. Will and I took a couple of beers and went and stood outside under the car port so we could have a cigar. Watching the rain roll off the cars parked out side and just generally “chewing the fat” as they say here.

Bill departing Girdwood Strip for the flight back to Merrill FIeld

Time to go, we all said our goodbys and got back in the mini bus. Steve drove us round the corner to the strip so we could watch Bill depart and we could take some photos. we were soon back on the highway heading back towards Anchorage  and the hotel. Another day done.

Resume own navigation and watch for traffic

S