Wow, that went fast! Our first weekend is in the books, and it was quite fun. Friday night we got some of our stuff unloaded and got our selves ready for an Alaskan right of passage. Our first night at the famed Chilkoot Charlie's. This place is crazy, and huge. There is so much going on at one time, and no amount of blogging can do it justice. But some of the highlights were the dueling piano(there was only one that night), the ten different bars in which you could get a drink, the multiple themed rooms playing different music in each(strangely the room themed for the 40's and 50's was playing club jams) and a live top 40 cover band. None of that though could touch the level of people watching that can be had at this Anchorage institution. For example the 40 something, leopard print clad drunk woman dancing in front of us that fell right on her butt. Needless to say it was quite an inauguration into Koot's world.
Saturday we headed downtown to walk around some and get acquainted with the city. We went to the Dena'ina center for a free pow wow. There was a lot of native arts and crafts for sale and demonstrations of native dancing, songs and drumming.
After getting our culture on we headed right across the street to another famous Anchorage bar, Humpys Great Alaskan Alehouse. This place we very cool, they have tons of beer on tap and good food. That night we had plans to go see a show at another place we had heard about that has live entertainment, but when it came time to go, we were just too exhausted. The long week of driving and instant immersion into the night life must have finally caught up to us.
Sunday morning we headed to my aunt and uncles house to do some cross country skiing. My Uncle Brian is an avid cross country skier and offered to show us the ropes. After some quick reuniting with an uncle and cousin I haven't seen in years, we headed off to a local park. My cousin Brandon's adorable daughter Alanah come with to do some sledding. We got our boots on, strapped them in and were off. At certain points it seemed pretty easy, right up until one of your skis just shoots behind or in front of you and feel completely our of control. All in all it was very fun, but tiring, so after just one lap around the park we opted out. That was OK though, because that allowed Brian to do some skiing, and us to do some tubular sledding with Alanah. After we were all pooped out, we walked across the parking lot to a little building that was advertising a model train exhibit. This was quite a surprise, inside was a whole room devoted to the art of recreating tiny towns and the trains that run through them. It really was amazing what they had created and it was all captivating to Alanah, which was quite the reward for the old dudes that had put it all together.
After our outing we headed back to the house for a late lunch and catching up. It was really fun seeing Brian, Cindy, Brandon and Alanah, and we are really grateful to have them here for support.
It went by fast, and was full of fun. Now we are getting our serious on and diving nose first into job hunting. Tomorrow we are headed down to Soldotna for a job fair and to check out the town. Stay tuned!
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