September 15, 2025
My first day in Anchorage was not terribly productive from a photo standpoint. I had some personal business to attend to, and of course I went to both the Visitor Center (back to the American spelling!) and the Public Library.
The Visitor Center downtown was very interesting:
From the grass on the roof to the abundance of flowers, it was unlike most others I have been to. Unfortunately this building wasn’t open the first time I went and I had to go in a regular office building behind it. I stocked up on maps and brochures, and asked my questions about mountain and glacier identification. This building would be open the second time I went downtown. Not sure why they alternate between the two…
The second place I went was a Walmart in town. I was unable to renew my various prescriptions in Canada because pharmacy’s there will not fill US prescriptions. I kind of screwed up my 90 days from when I left Durham and had to stagger my meds towards the end until I got to Alaska. I had to go and advise them to expect the information from my doctors in Durham, and give them my insurance information. I then reached out to my doctors here in Durham and requested that they send my refill requests to Anchorage. I have one mail order source and I had them sent that (lower priority) refill to my brother in Arizona. They had filled 2 90-day prescriptions with 100 pills each, so I had some of those pills to keep using.
After that I went to the library! My Airbnb didn’t really have a good workspace to use my laptop and I use it quite a bit in the evening when I am on the road. I actually went to the library every day I was in Anchorage (if I wasn’t on the road somewhere). I noticed this sign in the lobby as I was going downstairs to the exit on my first visit there:
I wanted to study the information I had picked up at the Visitor Center and start forming a plan for my days both here and elsewhere. I had been told that many touristy things in Alaska (and Canada, for that matter) shut down after Labor Day. Some restaurants and touristy things in coastal towns that host cruise ships would be open a little longer, but by mid-September they were starting to wind down, too. Several times I would show up somewhere only to learn that the establishment was closed for the season.
I would be in town 4 nights initially and then return for 3 more nights later in my trip. I didn’t actually do that many things in Anchorage but it was a strategic location to operate from.
I will try to break the mountain monotony and entertain you with some oddball photos of things in town that I found interesting (in my own JohnBoy way)…
When I went to McDonalds for coffee this was my order number:
666 – Sign of the devil….
My Airbnb for the first two nights was in a part of town called Spenard (in fact my hostess called her home the “Weathered Den of Spenard” and even had her business license in that name).
That is a sign, evidently an art project, modeled after a Spam can (and with a fake crow).
This is a burger joint who’s parking lot I used to take the photo above so I felt obligated to have lunch there later in the day.
And that is an original 1957 poster they had inside. It was an interesting place!
The word buckaroo has always appealed to me and this club was also across the street from where I had parked, so of course I added it to my collection..
And the political sign on the side of the club also meant something to me, especially when I read the “fine print”. I used to volunteer at a college radio station when I lived in Pennsylvania (while I was still in high school) and one of the radio serials we aired was called Nick Danger, Third Eye – about a fictional detective. Sure enough, here was a Nicholas Danger running for office…
And I will leave you with this beer ad on the side of another building.
As you can probably tell, I gravitate towards strange things sometimes….
Tomorrow – my first trip to Mount Denali!!
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