We had an eventful day in Anchorage yesterday, as we experienced the broad range of cultural experiences and outdoor activities the city provides. We met Neil and Melanie at Snow City for lunch – mmm, salmon cake hero and reindeer sausage soup – and then went over to their new house to check out all of the work they’ve been doing. Afterwards, we headed home and took out the snowshoes for a little circumnavigation of the house.
We headed down the path that we used for sledding and for taking the dog for a walk; it’s a little overgrown now, but we managed to find our way around, down towards the Taco Bell house and the house with a full-fledged observatory attached, and then back up by the woodpile and the old Jeep and home again.
After our snowshoeing, we deserved some of the hot chocolate with chili powder (quite a kick at the end there), so we fixed up some of it and played a few games of Pente on the floor of the living room. Just like old times…
We then headed out to the always-impressive Title Wave bookstore to browse and to the local REI flagship to look at a tent for our registry. One pair of gloves later, we headed back south to Little Italy, an old favorite (and the natural choice with Mexico in Alaska closed for the week), to meet Mom and Dad for a delicious dinner.
Next up was our main activity of the evening, an Alaska Aces hockey game at the Sullivan Arena. The last time I had been to the Sullivan Arena, no joke, was the day of my high school graduation, as far as I can recall, and I don’t think it’s changed much in the past 11 years. The game, against the San Diego Gulls, was fun to watch, though it was pretty easy to tell that the players were one or two notches below the NHL pros in their puck-handling skills. The reason we went to the game was to see Calder Trophy and Lord Stanley’s Cup winner (and hometown hero) Scott Gomez play while the NHL is on strike, and though he didn’t get much of a chance to shine, it was clear he was able to move himself and the puck around at another level. The most entertaining aspect of the game was the litany of sponsored events and situations that occurred throughout: the “Subway Penalty Kill,” the “AAA Fencing Power Play,” and the “Alaskan Metal Supply Penalty Box,” for example. Everything at an ECHA hockey game is a chance to make a buck, from a raffle to a split-the-pot to a chuck-a-puck to selling naming rights for every event in the game. I’m surprised we weren’t watching the Mt. McKinley Plumbing Anchorage Aces.
After dinner, the four of us headed to Sub-Zero, still nearly empty but also still clinging to life, making martinis from scratch for a select few Anchorage-ites. The only change since the last time we went there seemed to be the addition of a plasma tv, though the volume on “South Park” was thankfully down. I enjoyed the “Kurant Affair” once again, Dad tried another Belgian Ale, and Mom once more asked for something “not too sweet” and got a different answer from the same bartender. We’ll be back, if it will.
Mom and Dad went home while Aimee and I made one more stop for the evening, the “World Famous” Chilkoot Charlie’s. I’d only been there once before, and seen enough to mostly dispel the image in my head of a scary biker bar where fights happen nightly and women venture alone at their own risk. It still does have sawdust on the floor and pictures of the “The Day Ted [Nugent] Came to Town” on the wall, but everyone can probably find one of the half a dozen bar areas to his liking. We hung out in the swing bar enjoyed the people-watching, though I was sad to miss the Russian Room and Soviet Walk, “with the unique flavor of czarist Russia,” only open Thursday to Saturday.
