Alaska Here We Come

We made it to Seattle!  Here we got a couple of days to relax.  Once we got the car dropped off at the barge and on it's way to Bethel, we decided to spend the remainder of the afternoon downtown.  Pike Place Market was awesome.  I could spend all day there.  So many photo ops!  I just didn't even have time to explore them all. 

 If I lived someplace where fresh flowers were so available, my home would never be void of their beauty and fragrance.  We even got to see the fish throwing the market is known for - that really can't be good for the fish!  After a couple hours spent at Pike Place we headed to the Space Needle, because what trip to Seattle is complete without a trip up the Space Needle?  Neat, touristy, glad we did it, but our next trip to Seattle, I'll gladly spend more time at the market.

Once we got to Anchorage the real work began.  We gave ourselves 2 days to stock up on supplies.  When flying in the state of Alaska, each ticketed passenger can check up to three 50 pound bags for free.  The reason for this is to help people in the more rural parts of the state squirrel away necessities they can't get in their villages, or that cost an obscene amount of money where they are from.  So off to Walmart we go.  We bought six Rubbermaids and headed to Costco.  What a money saver we were able to do this!  Even though we spent about $800 between the two stores, purchasing the same supplies in Bethel would have been close to double that.  I'm sure I will never fly anywhere else where Coscto sized packages of paper towels and toilet paper coming across the luggage belt in baggage claim is the norm - and don't think for a second that one of them wasn't ours ;-)