Day 55

July 23, 2017

Short drive today from Talkeetna to Anchorage, less than 100 miles.  We began to see the Chugach mountain range long before we arrived in Anchorage.

The city is about three times the size it was when we lived here in the mid-1970’s, four-lane roads everywhere.  We found the Walmart to stock up on supplies and a short distance from there was our campground for the next few days, Gold Nugget RV Park.  Got set up, had a quick snack for lunch then we drove to the city’s greenhouses

to view the flowers that are maintained year around so the summer can be colorful.

Leaving there we drove down the Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet 

to Girdwood  (famous as having the ski resort, Alyeska where we learned to ski) to a restaurant David and Marianne had recommended we go for a meal, Double Musky, named for the house drink.  It opens at 4:30 PM, we arrived at 3:45 and already there was a line, we had a good visit with some locals while waiting.  They had all the menu memorized and gave us a breakdown of all the choices.  We got a table at exactly 4:31 and had a cup of gumbo with jalapeño bread, then shared the French Pepper Steak, 20 oz. of medium rare steak with the pepper steak sauce on top and baked potato.  It was delicious but we brought at least 12oz. of it home.  We will dine on the leftovers for several days. Dessert was pecan crust chocolate pie with cream on top.

The drive back to Anchorage was very busy, Anchorage folks returning from the Kenai at the end of the weekend, but not so bad as it was still bright sunshine.  In the winter this would be a problem.  Back at the Unity we thought we would watch some local TV, started a really good program about grizzly bears in Alaska during the salmon run but sleep overtook us and we were shortly putting the bed down.