Anchorage Alaska - Mayor's Marathon Trip: June 15th - June 21st

My friend Jeanette had planned on running her 49th state marathon in Alaska and I decided I was going to go with her!  My friend Sara decided that she was crazy enough to go along with me!

I had no idea that when I booked a flight with Southern Airways that it was a teeny, puddle jumper that flew from Muskegon to Chicago.  The tickets were cheaper than any other airline, BUT it took us 1.5hrs to fly to Chicago.  The pilots looked like they just graduated from flight school.  The seats were numbered with house number stickers.  When the pilot closed the door, he asked me to clip something in on the door....I didn't realize I was going to be employed by the airline as a passenger...

 

I was convinced this would be the last picture of Sara and I before our inevitable plane crash.

View from our hotel. Inlet Tower Hotel and Suites did not disappoint!

Sara, Jeanette and I at the Race Expo

It was a perfect day for the race!  The weather was cool (maybe 50 degree tops in the morning?) and sunny and dry.  We were bussed from downtown to the start of the race at Kincaid Park

I only took one picture during the race, and this was it.  I usually don't like to mess with my phone while I'm running because I'm always afraid I'll mess up strava or turn something on and drain my battery.

I did pretty good for myself.  Finished in 4:14:18

Sara and I with our medals!

Jeanette's husband Mike, Jeanette, Sara and I for our post race dinner and beers

Sunday, after our race, I had planned on picking up a car at the airport.  Through the Turo app, I reserved a VW Jetta that was a stick shift.  It was cheaper than all the other vehicles and since I can drive a stick I figured it was no problem.  Sara and I took the hotel shuttle to the airport so we could pick up the car.  First of all, it took us a bit of walking to figure out where exactly the car was parked since there are two parking ramps.  Eventually, we found the right ramp and the car!  There was a key box on the car that I had the code to, to get the key.  Once we got the key, I had to sign in using Turo and take pictures of the vehicle to upload.  As I was taking pictures, this guy popped out of nowhere and was like "Hey, I work for Brandy, you here to pick up the car?".  I thought that maybe he was checking to see if we were legit renters or something for Brandy (the lady who actually owned the car).  He then asked if he could 'see if he had left any cleaning supplies in the truck or the back of the car'.  Since it was during the day and Sara was with me, I figured it was ok, but it sure seemed strange.  He looked in the car and then asked me some questions about our flight and what we were doing in Anchorage.  Eventually, he went on his way. In hindsight, I guess he could have murdered us....next time I'll have to be more vigilant.  

Anyway, we get in the car, I start it, put it in reverse....and the car moves forward.  At first I thought, "Oh, I must not have moved the stick over enough to get it in reverse and I'm in first".  So, I try again and again the car moves forward.  At this point, Sara is like, "are you sure you know how to drive a stick?".  I'm like, "YES!  I just don't understand.  I'm looking at the diagram printed on the stick shift and it shows reverse in the far left-forward position, but I keep going forward instead of backwards!".  Luckily, we were on a slight incline in the parking spot.  So, I put it in neutral and let the car roll backwards out of the spot.  I turned the wheels and now I had more room to try and go in reverse.  However, every time I tried, the car kept lurching forward! Finally, I had no more room to move.  If I lurched forward one more time I was going to hit another parked car.  I didn't know what to do!  I decided that we could try and turn the wheels as far as they would go, push the car backwards, and hopefully have enough room that we could just go forward from that point.  Sara got out of the car, I turned the wheel as far as it would go and jumped out to help her push.  I wasn't sure we would be able to push the car seeing as we were both wearing flipflops and crocs!  We were able to push the car back far enough to go forward without hitting another car.  We jumped in and made our way out of the parking ramp.  Sara asked, "Do you think we can go the whole weekend without ever going in reverse?"

Just when I was about to call Gary and ask him how the Frick do you go reverse in a Jetta, Sara shouts, "Hold on, I'm going to look it up on YouTube!  What is this car again?"  I tell her it's a 2018 VW Jetta.  She finds a video on YouTube and says "Watch this!".  In the video, it shows you that you have to PUSH DOWN ON THE STICK SHIFT WHEN IT IS IN NEUTRAL, THEN pull the stick to the left and forward.  I follow those instructions and sure enough I can feel the car go into reverse.  I practiced a few times in the open area just outside of the ramp.  Success!  Now I understood why the whole front end of that Jetta was all smashed up.  I guarantee that everyone who has ever rented that car did the exact same thing!

Now you tell me if there is any indication on this stick, that in order to go in reverse you have to push DOWN on the stick shift, THEN pull towards the left and forward to get into reverse.  Terrible design!

Hey VW, I fixed your design problem for you.  See the graphic above.  At least this indicates to the driver that SOMETHING different needs to happen in order to go in reverse.  Your other graphic is NOT intuitive and people have to look up YouTube videos on how to put a Jetta in reverse.  

Anyway, after that harrowing event, we made our way back to the hotel, got our stuff, drove to pick up Jeanette and Mike and then headed out of town on our little adventure for the day.

Our first major stop was the Thunderbird Falls Trail.  It was about a mile in to view a beautiful river and waterfalls.

We hiked to Thunderbird Falls (Jeanette, Sara, Me and Mike - Jeanette's husband)

Sara and I at the falls. Don't we make a great couple. lol

There was another trail that went down to the creek from the falls.

After the falls, we stopped at this place called Eklutna Historical Park.

These are called 'spirit houses'. Every grave has one.  Some are brand new and some have collapsed over the grave.  It had something to do with the person's spirit and the afterlife.  I guess family would put belongings of the person in the little house.

Next on the list, we drove up to Independence Mine - An old gold mining village at around 1800 feet.  Not that high, but high enough that the air was cooler and there was still snow up there.

Overview of the old village.  

We lucked out so bad.  It was a perfect day and the sky was so clear!

We saw a lot of this pink snow up in the mine area.  Someone called it 'watermelon snow'.  We later googled it and found out that it is a species of algae that thrives in cold.  The algae has a red pigment, so it looks pink on the snow.

After touring the town, we were headed back to the car when I saw this group of kids and parents getting out of a van and standing around talking.  I looked and saw that a couple of kids had Hamilton Eagles sweatshirts on.  I thought, 'there is no way that they are from Hamilton, Michigan'.  As I walked by, I casually just said, "Hamilton, Michigan??". A couple of the kids whip their heads around and look at me and say, "how do you know where Hamilton, Michigan is?"  I said, " I live in Saugatuck (which is about 10 minutes from Hamilton).  Then I went over to chat with the adults of the group.  I found out that this group was a mission trip to Alaska to do some work in remote villages and that particular day they were doing an outing to the old mining village.  What a weird small world!.

June 19th - Drive to Whittier

The next day, Mike and Jeanette had to leave early in order to catch their cruise ship.  They were spending the rest of their time in Alaska on a cruise. Sara and I planned on taking the car down to Whittier for the day.  

We stopped at Beluga Point for a picture

We get to the portage glacier cruise starting point and find out that ALL THE CRUISES were canceled for the day because of mechanical issues.  Of course...
So, the ladies at the cruise shop told me and Sara that there was a cool hike just past the tunnel in to Whittier.  We decided that the hike was going to be what we were going to do for the day instead.

In order to get to Whittier, you have to spend about 10 minutes driving through this tunnel which was cut through the mountain.  I guess this was dug out during WWII.  Apparently we needed port access here.  Trains and cars can go through the tunnel.  There is a daily time table that tells you when the traffic is going from Whittier to Portage and then Portage to Whittier.  It's about every 30 minutes it switches directions.

The start of our big hike to the glacier lake!

The elevation was not high, but it was a pretty good hike up over the course of about a mile.  Past this point, you hike down to the glacier lake.

At the top was a little lake.  Clear water and refreshing

I was a little nervous that we would run out of water, even though we had 3 Nalgene bottles of water.  I only had chorine pills to clean the water and the pills take 30 minutes to activate.  So, I took the 3rd bottle and emptied it into our half-full bottles. Then took my bandana, wrapped it around the top of my Nalgene bottle to create a make-shift filter.  I let the water push through the bandana, filling up my bottle and hopefully at least keeping sand out of it. Then I dropped a couple of chorine or iodine pills into the bottle and checked the time.  We didn't end up running out before we could get to town to buy some, but better safe than sorry!

There were 3 girls that hiked all their gear to the lake, inflated their pack rafts and started heading to the glacier.  Their plan was to climb the glacier.  I was so jealous!

I love nothing more than hiking through snow and mountains and being by water in the summer.  My favorite!

This is the entire town of Whittier.  There are no houses.  There are apartments that were left over from WWII.  They fixed them up I guess and the entire town lives in this apartment block.  it's a very strange place.

When we were in Whittier, we wanted to stop at this party store to get some water and snacks.  This is what we encountered on the front door.  We did eventually find a store to get water and ice cream!

After spending about 45 minutes in Whittier, we headed back through the tunnel and decided to stop at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center.

Sara got a great picture of a bear hanging out at the center. The way she got the picture of the bear, she looks like it's in the wild.  We laughed because she posted it on facebook with the caption, "saw a bear".  We didn't mention that we saw it at an outdoor zoo.

Moose just chilling.  I guess all the animals at this sanctuary were 'rescued' and can't go back into the wild and fend for themselves

I'm all for natural selection for stupid people

June 20th: Last Day in Alaska!

Our flight from Alaska was not leaving until late on the 20th.  The weather was kind of crappy, so we just spent the day walking around the city of Anchorage.

Sara and I stopped at this place called Alaska Wild Berry Products.  They had this HUGE chocolate fountain.  You would think it would be a cool thing.  However, imagine a fountain made of chocolate...where the chocolate was months old....and imagine what that chocolate looks like....now imagine the SMELL that old chocolate produces.  Also, even though the chocolate is controlled, there are still micro-splatters every where..so everything nearby is sticky.

The cool thing was that you could watch them make candy at the berry place

One thing we noticed that there are a LOT of homeless people and several 'tent cities' in Anchorage. This one was small compared to the main one just outside of town.  Apparently, a lot of the homeless people are First Nations people.  They live on reservations, but suffer from addictions.  Families will basically 'dump' the addicted person in the city and make them the city's problem.

Around 4pm, we did have to drop the car back off at the airport.  We still had several hours before our flights, so we dumped our luggage at the airport, hopped on the the public bus, made our way back to downtown Anchorage, and drank the next few hours! haha

Around 8pm, we made our way back to the airport so we could get situated for our flights home.

Our flight didn't leave until 10ish, so it was a long and uncomfortable ride home, but uneventful none the less.

We made it to Chicago without incident.  From Chicago, we had to take that puddle jumper across the lake to Muskegon.  This time the little plane was packed!  There were a lot of people going to some Electric Forest music festival that were flying over. I didn't think anything at all until one of the guys said 'it looks like my luggage didn't make it on the plane'.  Then it dawned on me that because the plane was packed with people, they couldn't fit all the luggage on because of weight limits.  I looked, but I didn't see if my luggage on the tarmac, but I was unsure if my luggage made it on the plane.  Luckily, I put an AirTag in my luggage.  I could see that it was near the plane, but not sure if where.  Anyway, we took off and flew to Muskegon.  Once we landed, I turned on my phone to see that my luggage was still in Chicago.  That would have been fine, except for the fact that my car keys were in my luggage that was still in Chicago.  So, I called Gary and asked if he could drive all the way to Muskegon with my extra set of keys.  About an hour later, he arrives with my keys.  I tell him thanks, get in my car, turn the key and nothing happens.  I wanted to fucking die.  At this point, I couldn't even think straight because I had been up for longer than 24 hours and I was starving.  Gary somehow found a couple of maintenance guys that worked at the airport.  They brought their truck over to help jump my jeep.  The crazy thing is that when we popped the hood, something had eaten the plastic around my battery case!!  See the image below!

What the hell got into my jeep and ate the plastic around my battery case???

Anyway, after the guys jumped my Jeep, I gave them some cash and a hug!  However, I got about halfway across the parking lot before my Jeep died again!  The battery was so far gone, it couldn't hold a charge.  So, the guys came back around again and we let their truck sit on my battery for about 20 minutes.  During that time, they let me know that there was an Autozone just about 2 miles away.  All I had to do was get my Jeep to the Autozone.  I got the Jeep started and just kept the gas revving the engine the entire time!  If I let up on the gas, the whole IP started going bonkers! (lights flashing and flickering)  Once we got to Autozone, I just handed Gary my wallet and asked him to just buy a new battery I was too close to tears to think straight.  So they came out with a new battery, got the new one installed and BAM, my Jeep started right up! FINALLY, I could drive home!!!

I got home, but there was still the issue with my luggage.  Sara's luggage was left behind in Chicago too.  I tried calling the 'airport', but could never get a hold of anyone.  I tried the website, but I couldn't get anywhere either.  I tried the chat on the website and they said they 'put in an incident report'.  There was just nothing I could do....

The next morning, I had to go to work.  I checked my air tag and at some point I saw that my luggage was now in Muskegon!  I think I kept calling the airport and somehow got a hold of someone.  They took my number and said that some guy would contact me.  Eventually, an unknown number called me.  I would usually not pick it up, but I figured they had my luggage.  Sure enough, it was some guy who worked for the airline and was running luggage around to people.  I told him that I worked in Holland but I would meet him halfway to get my luggage so he didn't have to drive all the way to Holland.  He agreed and I met him and got my luggage without incident!  Thank God!

I told him that my friend Sara would be calling him in regards to her luggage as well.  I gave him her info, but I also gave her his info.  Later she would tell me that they acted like she lived on the moon and kept not wanting to drive "ALL" the way to GR to drop off her luggage.  I knew they would be a pain in the ass about it, so that's why I kissed the guy's arse and said that I would meet him halfway!

I think 3 days went buy and she FINALLY got her luggage safe and sound.

Lesson learned - there's a reason cheap plane tickets are cheap.  You pay for what you get!  And I will not be flying with Southern Airways again.

Anyway, the trip was great besides all that flying drama.  10/10 would do again!!

Sara and I before the race!  She's a great travel buddy!

Around Prague: Unique observations around the City of Prague, CZ

Just random observations that I find interesting compared to what we see in America 

K muž! (said like "K, Moozh)- I heard a couple of kids yell this at each other.  It mean 'ok man!'.  That became our saying. lol

There was free public wifi located at the metro/tram stops.  

A lot of cemetery plots look like this. They are overgrown and haven't been taken care of in a really long time.

A lot of cemetery plots look like this as well.  They tend to light a lot of candles and make their family plots like a shrine to the deceased. 

I thought it was interesting to see what the current popular names are in Czechia.

This was outside of the Ukraine Embassy in Czechia.  We saw people coming and going...we didn't know what their status was but there were 2 homes that were being used as the embassy at the time.

I don't know how the people of Czechia do it, but I swear they have the most well behaved dogs I have ever seen.  Dogs are allowed everywhere.  In the mall, in restaurants, in stores, etc.  And rarely are they on a leash.  They follow their owner and pay no attention to anyone else.  They don't jump or bite.  We saw a dog run ahead from it's owner once....the owner yelled his name and snapped his fingers and the dog stopped in his tracks and came back.  It's amazing really.

So many places we were allowed to go in to are not handicap accessible and are a little dangerous.  They would never allow you to climb up these narrow stairs in the US.

The name of this restaurant just made me laugh

Eggs are not refrigerated because they don't wash the eggs in Europe.  Which leave this protective coating on the eggs, which allows you to leave them out in the open. 

I love that stores have fresh bread like this.  Yes, it is out in the open, but I don't care because it is made fresh daily and is awesome.

The Walmart of Europe

These were almond trees.  They were all along the hill that lead up to the Petrin.  I guess I didn't know what raw almonds looked like!

They had this tuna mixed with veggies.  Very good!!!

They also have a lot of foods that are encased in this clear jelly stuff.  I think it's just fat.  Gary said it's pretty good, but I could not get myself to even try it.  It's hard to see, but the ham, egg and pickle are in a solid block of clear jelly.

I guess Churches need to move forward with the times.  Instead of actually lighting a candle with a real flame, you put a coin in and a fake flame lights for you!

I wanted to steal this Jurassic poster so bad!  I think it's cool to see US movies in other languages. 

Prague has some of the deepest metro stations!  it is quite daunting to get on this thing.  Look how long it is!!!  The above picture you can see how steep of an angle we are at.

My favorite are these Eis Kaffees!!  

Another dog at a restaurant.  He knew I was taking a picture of him. haha

The French Embassy in Prague.

When I was here in 2010, this was where my school was (Anglo American University).  They moved out at some point and are in another building.

Karlov Most - The Charles Bridge.

I can't believe this club still exists!  This was the place to go back in 2010!

My favorite European Brand!!

These sushi places are kind of cool.  You just grab what you want from the conveyor belt of food.  I think you pay by the plate at the end.

There is a LOT of graffiti in Prague.  But, it's looked at differently than in the US.  Graffiti does not mean 'bad neighborhoods' or 'gangs'.  It's a way of self expression from the repression that the Czech people have been under for decades by the Russians and Germans. 

We are kind of making fun of the social media Instagram posing nonsense. 

This place made me chuckle a little bit.  I'm sure it's traditional Czech food, but it's right in the heart of the tourist area.  There are a lot of other places I would go to eat.  

While we were there, the Czech people showed lots of love and support for Ukraine.

Wolt is the 'Door Dash' of Prague.  But what was funny is that a lot of them just walked with these food backpacks on.  Or they ride their bikes.

The pubic transportation system in Prague is fantastic.  We bought passes so that we could ride all over the city on the trams and the metro.  What I thought was funny is that they do have public transportation that are boats!  This is a boat stop.  It just goes to the other side and that's the boat schedule listed there.

Prague was a fortified city.  This is where they cut down some of the wall out to plow a road through the fortified portion of the city.  

When Russia occupied and owned Czechia, they had the money to build up the city.  However, one of the things that they did was literally plow a super highway right through the historic district of the city with no regards to historic buildings.  It looks very out of place compared to the rest of the old city. 

When I was here in 2010, this is where I lived!

When I lived here in 2010, this was the Potraviny that Jade and I went to all the time.

The streets are old and very narrow.  In order to park in a lot of places, you have to park on the sidewalk

The Russian era looking Metro!

The Krtek.  The Czech mole character.  He's the 'Mickey Mouse' of Czechia.  He's a little character that you can find everywhere!