B & D's USA Hideout: Anchorage, AK

Flying into Anchorage will capture you immediately. Looking through the large glass windows of the airport will show you the multifarious, magnificent snow peaked mountains and give you a tingle up your spine with a strong notion that there are much bigger things than yourself out there in this world. I have flown in and out of Anchorage several times and have spent a couple weeks debriefing in the city while I was observing. As observers, we were very limited to travel other than by foot, so I don't know the city all that well but am familiar with it enough. I made plans to catch up with my long lost pal, Keith, who is originally from New Hampshire but now lives in Anchorage. Keith and I trained together back in 2012 to be apart of the first group of partial coverage observers to sail on vessels smaller than 60' in length. The funny thing is we never saw each other in the field and it has been several years since we've been face to face. Keith is the kind of guy you feel like you've known forever. He is a very sweet, funny and friendly soul. He also has a lovely lady friend, Sharon, who we met for the first time. We had an awesome weekend together mostly chasing tail, fish tail that is, with just a little luck.

Brian and I camped in Eagle River at Eagle River State Park. There were many others with the same idea, so we ended up in the overflow parking lot but that didn't bother us much because we weren't there except to sleep at "night". I put night in quotations because the clock says it's night but the never setting sun begs to differ. I showed Brian the downtown area and we hit the couple cool spots I knew of including Humpys Great Alaskan Ale House and had some yummy pizzas at the Moose's Tooth Pub and Pizzeria. Keith and Sharon met us there and the fun began. Saturday we bought our day use Chinook salmon stamps and gave it our best fishing for them in Ship Creek. Fishing in urban Alaska is unique to say the least. You literally stand shoulder to shoulder with other fisherman alike, all casting lines in the water trying to hook onto the mighty King salmon. We had no luck there so we headed up north of the fishing area to view the hatchery where all these spawning salmon were headed. After that, we tried one more spot to get the most out of our King stamps for the day. We had no luck at the Turnagain Arm either but still had a blast trying. The four of us threw in the towel for the day and headed to Rochelle's Ice Cream Shop for a tasty treat and a short walk at Eklutna Lake to end the day. With fish on the brain, we planned for a Sunday funday day trip down to Seward to snag some sockeyes. Snagging is allowed here but only in the tidal zone. We started the day bright and early and made sure to pack plenty to beers and food. Our squad snagged our butts off from dawn til dusk but only the boys walked away a with fishes. Oh well, us lucky ladies got to eat those yummy salmon regardless. We took necessary hot showers and cooked up the fresh fish at Keith's for dinner and headed home for the night after that. Great weekend all around.