Downtown Anchorage

Today we headed to downtown Anchorage. Mainly to take in the Anchorage Museum of History and Art, and also to have some lunch. Mom has proceeded to point out a number of really good eateries, but to eat at them all we'd have to stay until late July.

We parked near the mall and walked everywhere, which wasn't too bad. We ended up covering about 18 blocks in our travels, and it only sprinkled a little bit, so it was a pretty nice walk. There isn't much of a buffer zone between the sidewalk and the street in Anchorage, though, so it can get noisy and a bit tight as double trailered trucks go by 6 feet away.


The museum was really nice. They had some strange contemporary native American art thing going on that was kind of odd, but they had an Alaska exhibit that was very interesting. Thanks to some cruise tour groups, we went through it backwards, but still saw the whole exhibit. They had everything from a full size whaling boat that the Eskimos have used for centuries to a cross section and "pig" from the Trans-Alaska pipeline.

After the museum, we headed to the Glacier Brewhouse for lunch. Mom has had a number of meetings here, and it came highly recommended from her. The food was excellent, and the beer was more excellenter yet. I enjoyed a cask conditioned IPA that was scary smooth. It was 3/4 gone before I realized it. If this place was located in the greater Dublin area, I'd eat there once a week...though I doubt the halibut would be as fresh as it was this afternoon.

We then strolled back towards the car and did the touristy thing of t-shirt shopping. We also stopped at Town Square Park, which is where the picture of the boys above was taken.

All in all it was a nice day, and we made it back home in time to watch the Ducks beat the Senators. Nothing like squeezing in Game 3 at 4 in the afternoon, then having dinner.

Map of our travels today.