We headed up to Anchorage on Saturday to take in a hockey game, the Minnesota Golden Gophers vs. the Alaska-Anchorage Seawolves. We have been looking forward to this adventure since September when we first ordered the tickets. The drive up was beautiful; snow covered mountains, the Kenai and Russian rivers still flowing with that aqua tint, and chunks of ice floating in the large body of water known as Turnagain Arm. There were so many chunks of ice, the water was so still, and our surroundings displayed a grayish hue such that it caused the Arm to look like a barren wasteland. It was also very foggy along portions of the drive. Because the fog was so low, we often couldn’t see the bottom of the mountains, only the tops. At one point our clear windshield fogged up nearly all the way in a matter of seconds. It was bit scary, but we immediately rolled the windows down and turned on the defrost. The mountain temperature must have suddenly dropped.
We stayed at a Ramada near downtown Anchorage allowing us to walk around and take in some sites. There is a park in the middle of downtown filled with ice sculptures, a skating rink, and an area for curling. It reminded me a lot of Rice Park in downtown St. Paul, but smaller. We also went to the Alaska Glacier Brewhouse for a late lunch where I experience my first Cajun meal, a Cajun Alaskan Rockfish sandwich. The fish variety up here really is amazing. On our way back to our hotel we stumbled across the street corner where the Iditarod begins every year. Jon and I are excited to be attending that this March.
On Saturday evening we headed out to the hockey game and started to have some issues with our Buick LeSabre. The accelerator was down but not much acceleration was really happening…in any gear. We both knew all too well what it was having experienced the same thing back in May with the Buick, it was the transmission. Amazingly enough we were able to get to the ice arena, where just as we were about to park, it killed on us completely. So, we pushed it into a parking spot and went in to enjoy the game. Unfortunately the Gophers played a descent 1st period and got lazy during the 2nd and 3rd. Anchorage won 2-1. We cabbed it back to the hotel and called for a towing. On Sunday we made the decision to dispose of it.
Life’s a kick. We cabbed it to the airport Sunday afternoon, were immediately able to get on a flight back down to Kenai carrying, I kid you not, our bag of food (consisting of a 48 pack of granola bars, bananas, muffins, and a loaf of bread), motor oil, a shovel, and an ice scraper. Thank goodness we were in Alaska, we probably could have gotten on with a gun if we wanted to. What could we do? We had to clean our car out. So, despite the downers this past weekend, we were able to have a good time and even laugh at the situation.
Mark and Kelly…37 days!
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