Anchorage Management

Adrienne and I both have been to Anchorage before.  When I turned the big 5-0 we flew there and spent a few days wandering around.  We stayed up at the Alyeska Resort which is a wonderful place.  We rented a car and drove out along the Seward highway, visiting the animal rescue sanctuary, a couple of small (almost empty) villages along the water - in fact, if memory serves, one such place was called Hope.  We also drove all the way to Whittier and I had the best fish and chips I've ever had at a little restaurant on the dock there.  Sad, but that day was their last day in business too. I think the owners were moving away or something, not sure.  Anyway, Anchorage was a memorable trip for a variety of reasons.

I visited Anchorage again on my own on the 2016 cruise and again rented a car. Somewhere in the archives of this blog is a detailed description of what I did.  I do know I went hiking, drove up to Wasilla, and also again visited the animal sanctuary.  The place had grown since we were there last.

So this time, I was looking for something different to do.  Adrienne and I have always wanted to see the northern lights, but haven't managed to accomplish that yet.  I found out that in downtown Anchorage, there's this theatre just a block or so away from where the ship shuttle drops you off, that shows a very cool 45-minute movie of photographs and videos of the northern lights by this great photographer.  It's set to music and is fantastic!  So is the soundtrack, by the way.  So I booked that and didn't tell Adrienne what we were going to be up to.  I also rented a car for the day and picked that up a few blocks away from the shuttle stop as well.  It was a bit of a rainy day, and pretty much stayed that way most of the day.

We killed some time driving around the downtown area before parking, and walking to the theatre.  She loved the movie, so that was a solid "good job, Sherita!".

We weren't allowed to take any photographs inside the theatre, but I managed to sneak one quick one as the movie started. 


Next we drove out of town, north, to a nearby place called Chugiak.  I had made reservations at a private home owned by a local artist named Gina Murrow.  She hosts Paint A Scarf sessions and so we got to show off our (lack of) artistic skills and we created some neck scarves using paints and water and lots of swirls.  The result was pretty great!


Gina's home is a two-story log cabin that was assembled on site.  It sits on a beautiful piece of property with a large yard, both front and back.  In the back yard there is a swiftly running stream.  We painted on the back balcony of her home.  Fortunately, for the time we were there, the sun made an appearance and we enjoyed some great light and a bit of warmth.

This is Gina's greenhouse.

The creek, with fireweed growing all around.

Flowers were everywhere on the property.



We got some basic instruction on how to prepare and paint our scarves, then we had to decide what pattern/design we wanted to paint.  We could, of course, do our own free form type of design, but Gina had about 6 different samples, ranging from easy to difficult.  One of the difficult ones was a beautiful setting of fireweed, but my skills were definitely not up for that.  Adrienne chose a northern lights type of design, and I decided to paint hearts.  I can draw a heart okay on a piece of paper, but put a paintbrush in my hands, make me stand and draw it vertically on a piece of wet silk, and my lack of talent shines through!  Once we decided on a design, we went into the supply room and grabbed an easel, a fresh piece of the silk, our paints and brushes and then we set up out on the back patio.  We got some help attaching the silk to our easel, and then we were off and running. 


We watched a video before deciding what we wanted to do.  It helped us figure out what might work best for each of us.

My finished product.

Adrienne getting her swirl on.

Gina told us that you cannot be truly considered an Alaskan unless you've stood in a stream, river, lake or ocean barefoot for at least one minute.  So, we took that challenge!  Dang that water is cold!!!
But ----- you may now consider us true Alaskans, whoo hoo!

More flowers on Gina's property.

Showcasing our work.

Most of us in our little group chose to paint 2 scarves.  Adrienne kept to a similar pattern, but I changed mine up a bit.  One scarf of kooky hearts was enough.  My second scarf was a bit more sedate.

 

After our scarf painting session, we headed back to Anchorage.  We still had plenty of time before having to return the car, but we decided we'd had enough and so we turned it in early and caught the shuttle back to the ship.  We enjoyed a leisurely dinner on board and called it a day.