Beautiful Alaska!

I finally had a chance to drive around the area last night – one of our FAA counterparts kindly offered to host a little get-together at his home.  He had a beautiful home with a GORGEOUS view of the mountains!  I can’t image waking up to that every morning!  He lives in a community called Eagle River – a large subdivision north of Anchorage with lots of attractive homes.  I liked that all of the homes were different – not the same style – and each was on a hill with that same wonderful moutain view.   There are also paved walking paths all through the community – in fact, those paths are everywhere along the sides of the roads.  Bike-riding in the summer (and I imagine cross country skiiing in the winter) are really big up here.

Everything here is so pretty right now – I didn’t expect things to be so green and lush.  I always thought the moutains were more rocky, but they are covered with green trees in the summer time.  I think the summers here would more than make up for the lousy winters!  There are beautiful wildflowers growing everywhere and everyone’s gardens are filled with the most lovely delphiniums and other colorful flowers.  Apparently, things grow extremely well here because of the long hours of daylight (it hasn’t been getting dark until about 10:30pm every day) and mild temperatures.  Veggies grow bigger, lawns are greener and flowers are everywhere!

They said that this has been the coolest summer on record – the warmest temperature since we’ve been here was about 70 degrees.  The end of the week has been cool and rainy, but we had some pretty days when we got here (when I was running around downtown trying to buy things to wear).

But just to remind you of where you really are, they’ve been having a lot of bear problems in the local neighborhoods.  Bears have been attacking bikers and have been seen in people’s yards and even on their patios and decks.  They also like to go through trash – there are actually laws about how to store your trash to avoid attracting bears!  And I’m not talking about little Pooh bears – these are LARGE black bears and even grizzlys!

Still, I’d like to come back for a vacation and do some touring of the area some time, but for now, I’m ready to come home.  My flight home leaves at about 8:30 tonight and goes through Chicago – I hope my bags make it this time!