While most of our stops are not planned more than a few days in advance, we had planned much of our time in Alaska month’s prior. Summer is high season for Alaska and we did not want to miss out on a location because we had nowhere to stay. Our arrival into Alaska on July 3rd was no coincidence; we wanted to be in the states largest city of Anchorage on July 4th – USA’s Independence Day.
Lucky for us the Anchorage Ship Creek RV Park was as close to the downtown core as you could get, only about a 5-10 minute walk. On the flip side it was also right next to the downtown train station so, at 8am tourist trains would start their trek north to Denali National Park and blow their horn…a horn so loud it would literally shake the van. It was a hell of a wake up call to say the least.
After a quick breakfast we grabbed a backpack, hats and set out for a day of celebrating. It took about 20 minutes to walk to the other side of town where the 4th of July parade was going to happen. We found a spot to sit and watch and after about half an hour some of the first marchers appeared.
4th of July Parade
This parade was unlike any 4th of July parade that we had seen before. In addition to the normal marching bands, fire trucks and police cars it seemed that almost every club or group marched, regardless of size. The Thai Club, Korean Club, Mexican Club and even the Norwegian Club (with 3 members) marched. We saw the Anchorage British Car Club and Regular Classic Car Club, where one of the cars broke down right in front of us and a group of fire fighters had to push it off the parade route. By far the most interesting and fun club though was the Invisible Dog Club. There were about 30 people marching with the dog leashes that you would buy at a fair or amusement park made to look like they are around the necks of invisible dogs. They even had a guy with a shovel pretending to pick up invisible dog poo. It was pretty funny! We figured they were a charity club just having a little fun in the parade but later after looking online we were unable to find any information on them. Oh well, it was still a ton of fun watching them and the entire parade.
After the parade ended we walked through a carnival set up in Delany Park, directly next to the parade route. There were tons of people there. The scene was pretty reminiscent of a country fair. There were food trucks and food booths set up. A DJ from a local radio station was playing tunes as well as telling people what was open and where. There were bounce houses and other games for kids and families. It was a lot of fun to see and take it all in.
After walking around the park for a while Julie and I got tired of the crowds and started to get hungry for lunch. The last time I was in Anchorage I had been to a place called Humpy’s Great Alaskan Ale House and remembered it being pretty good. So we walked over there and gave it another chance. Stepping inside not much had changed since I had been there 12 years prior. We sat down and both ordered a beer and some food, grilled halibut for Julie and BBQ ribs for myself. Both were delicious!
From Humpy’s we walked over to Anchorage’s main tourist street, 4th street. Here we did our Anchorage shopping, grabbing some post cards, a shirt and a few other small odds and ends. We then walked down to the end of the street to Resolution Park, which overlooks the Cook Inlet. As far as parks go this one is tiny but the views of Cook Inlet in front of us were huge. Anchorage is a port city and there was every sort of ship coming and going in front of us. Everything from cruise ships, fishing trawlers to container ships and barges. It was pretty neat to see and take it all in.
Good food and drink
From the park we decided that we needed a bit more food and drink so we walked over to 49th State Brewery and sat on their 3rd story rooftop patio, which overlooked the inlet as well, as downtown. It was really quite special sitting up there being able to see almost 360 degrees around us. Most of Anchorage is surrounded by mountains so behind the mostly square and rectangular shaped buildings came sharp and craggy points of the mountains. It was a really cool contrast. From 49th State Brewery we walked over to the Glacier Brewhouse for dinner. This Brewery/restaurant had been in the city for a long time and I had remembered liking it as well. Here Julie had a King Salmon fillet while I went for snow crab stuffed cod. Both were out of this world delicious. We don’t normally eat and drink out as much as we did today but as we were not driving and it was a holiday we decided to indulge. After dinner we walked back to Bubbles, stuffed full of great Alaskan seafood and happy from having such a fun day.
Anchorage by bike
The next day we woke up ready to explore a bit more of Anchorage. Looking at a map we had seen what looked like a bike trail that extended along most of the waterfront. We did a bit of research and found out that it was called the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail. It started near our RV Park, wound a little bit through the city before continuing the rest of the way along the coast. In total the trail was 11 miles, perfect for a full day of sightseeing by bike.
We started the ride, slowly going through the city before the path cut towards the water. All of a sudden you were in a totally different environment. Gone were the cars, buildings and sounds. All we saw now were trees and the water. Every now and then we stopped at overlooks taking in the scenery. At one of these overlooks we met Sue & John, also from Rochester, NY. They were in their truck RV and had come up to Alaska for the summer. In our 3 years of travel it seems we always bump into people from Rochester or from somewhere in Western New York. It truly is a small world!
One of the coolest parts of the trail is a section that cuts between the Cook Inlet and the Anchorage International Airport. We were biking down the path, forest on both sides of us then all of the sudden…. WOOOOOOOSH, a huge plane just a few hundred feet above us ready to land. We thought this was pretty neat so we found an opening in the trees and I pulled up the FlightAware app on my phone. With the app I could see when the next plane was coming in and where it was coming from. We stayed in our spot for about 20 minutes watching plane after plane come in and land. We learned afterwards that the reason that there were so many planes was because the Anchorage airport is the 4th busiest in the world for air cargo.
Once we were done plane spotting we turned around and headed back on the trail into the city. Once we finally got back we looked and had biked just shy of 20 miles. We were pretty thirsty so we stopped at the Matanuska Brewery. We cheers’d to a great ride and a great day! After the beers we headed the short distance back to the RV park for the rest of the night.
Next up…We head south to Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula to do some world class fishing!
