Anchorage

We moved the camper to the Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska.  With an estimated 291,538 residents it is Alaska's most populous city and contains more than 40 percent of the state's total population.  To me, it seemed like a small city.  We noticed a lot of homeless people as we toured around.  We also noticed that the flowers were bountiful and beautiful throughout the city.  Right behind the campground is Ship Creek.  Currently the coho (silver) salmon are making their runs upstream.  The stream was full of these salmon and you could see fisherman attempting to catch them.


Earthquakes are a common occurrence in Anchorage.  The statistics show that the city has had 7,148 earthquakes in the past 365 days.  The Good Friday earthquake of 1964 hit Anchorage hard at a magnitude of 9.2, killing 115 people and causing a lot of damage.  The earth-shaking event lasted nearly five minutes.  Most structures that failed remained intact for the first few minutes, then failed with repeated flexing.  It was the world's second largest earthquake in recorded history.  They had another big earthquake just last year when on November 30, 2018 a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hit about 10 miles north of Anchorage.  There were many pictures throughout the city of the damage caused by these earthquakes.  It is amazing the city could even be rebuilt.

The Iditarod starts in Anchorage each year on the first Saturday in March.  The teams leave the start line at the corner of 4th and "D" at two minute intervals, starting at 10:00 am. 

It is really hard to see the salmon in this picture, but the Ship Creek was full of them.

Flowers grow so well in Alaska with the extended sunlight.  This is the Anchorage visitor center.

The statue and the white line marks the starting line of the Iditarod.

The food prices still seem a little high at $12.86 per lb for ribeyes.

Some prices are reasonable.  Only $1.98 per lb for Chicken Paws.