Before heading for lunch, we thought of checking out some tour operators to see if there were any other activities we could try today. The area we landed in was just beside Resurrection Bay – the water body beside Seward that connects to the North Pacific Ocean. We went in search of a zipline operator but found that this area had many activity operators – zipline, cruises, kayaking, and dog sledging. Each operator had a nice hut where they had their office – I even saw our cruise operator’s office, the major Marine Tours. We checked out a few, but the only one with a suitable timing was the dog sledge (dogs pulling you in a cart), which we decided to skip.
Most restaurants were in the downtown area (same place where we had dinner yesterday and breakfast today) – and so we were back there to a Mexican restaurant that Raghav and Rakesh had picked – the Lone Chicharron Taqueria. We ordered some burritos and tacos along with Jarritos (Mexican soda brand). On the table next to us was an American lady with 2 of her grandkids; their parents had gone somewhere nearby – Rakesh struck up a conversation with the kids and even told them a few words in Tamil since they were curious about our native language. After lunch, a couple of blocks away, Raghav noticed a board saying ‘Sweet Darlings’ – it was a dessert shop and not something that we’d give up. I looked up their online reviews, which seemed ok.
They were packed with customers – not overflowing, but all tables occupied, and even at the counter for their gelatos, there was a queue of 6. I tasted a couple of flavours, and Raghav bought a scoop of gelato – it was ok; I didn’t find it unique. On the same stretch, we saw a fairly large gift shop that had plenty of small souvenir-type items as well as larger gifts – a great place to pick up items to distribute to friends and family.
“Anything we want to do today?”
“Want to go to the Alaska Sealife centre?”
“What’s in there?”
“Sort of like an aquarium.”
“If there’s a polar bear, we can go. That’s the only thing we’ve not seen.”
“Na – they surely won’t have polar bears.” It’s a place to see the types of local fish and animals that inhabit the waters in the area.
“There are some trails further down – it seems to be in a park. We can check out the park.”
We drove south from the Downtown area, as Google advised us to – it led us into shady, deserted side roads – even though there was daylight, it felt like we were on the wrong route.
“Are we on some private roads?”
We got out of what seemed like private property and landed in an area that seemed like the edge of a forest – this was one end of the park, but there didn’t seem to be any entrance.
“We can’t leave the car anywhere here on the road, either.”
We spotted a couple of trail boards, and I guess the trails would take you through the park; one of the trails, per my research, would take you to a fort. But that was a longer hike.
“Want to do the trail?”
“Na. It will take time, and I’m not sure of the elevation. I was thinking we could enter the park.”
Considering Moorthy’s knee, we decided to return. Near the waterfront, there were signs of life – few lodging cabins; some had kayaking activity; it was a nice short return ride where we drove just near the water of Resurrection Bay – we were driving beside the Pacific Ocean! This was the beachfront, but it was rocky.
Junk food
It was around 5:30 pm when we were back home. Moorthy was having a back-and-forth conversation with the owner of our cabin regarding the internet connection – it was patchy, the speed was terrible, and he couldn’t watch the cricket games. The owner’s replies were also fairly inconsiderate – he messaged in the morning, and she said she would look at it in the evening!
“I thought these places would care about the reviews that people posted. Seems like she doesn’t care about it.”
Finally, Moorthy found where the wireless device was placed – it was like a treasure hunt to locate that! And then we played around, positioning it in different places to see where the speeds would be good.
“Try keeping it outside.”
I placed it just outside our door, and that’s where we found the signal strength and speeds were the best. The cabin next door was still unoccupied, and so there was no one else in these woods except us.
One issue when you travel in groups is that you’ll tend to buy these large packs of snacks – and we had chips and some crunchy flavoured onion rings that we kept munching on through the evening, along with cookies.
“We should go for dinner and buy dinner and come so that we don’t end up getting stuck like yesterday.”
Raghav was searching for restaurants.
“We can get food and do a campfire. There was wood in that supermarket.”
We had seen cut logs for sale at Safeway in the morning. So fuel wasn’t an issue, and there was an outdoor fireplace just in front of our cabin to start a campfire.
A feast
At 7 pm, we were in Safeway, and everyone wandered off to different aisles. When Raghav and I saw Rakesh a while later, we were surprised to see veggies in his shopping cart.
“Why?”
“Moorthy said we’ll cook dinner.”
“But why cook here?”
“He is insisting.”
A few minutes later, we spotted Moorthy while Rakesh was wandering around the veggies section. “Rakesh is eating very little. I think he wants Indian food.”
“But Rakesh usually eats only a little. He likes Thai food, and even that he eats less only. He is not particular about Indian food.”
“No man, he will eat more. He is eating very little in the restaurants.”
When we saw Rakesh picking Indian spices, both of us burst out laughing. With family or kids or having issues with finding suitable food, it would have been normal to cook while travelling – but with the four of us, it just felt ironic.
“We’ve come all the way to Alaska to cook Indian food!” It wasn’t like we weren’t finding anything to eat, and there was just one more day to go. “Moorthy says that since you are not eating well, we should cook.”
“I don’t need Indian food.”
“He says it’s for you.”
“I think it’s because he wants Indian food,” Rakesh quipped. “They even have some of the Indian masalas in this shop.”
“You both are certainly very serious about this.”
There was no way to talk them out of it. And anyway, since we didn’t have anything else planned for tonight, it was fine. And we joined in to help them pick items for the dinner feast and campfire. We even bought some fancy salt and pepper bottles. And at last we picked a bundle of fuel logs – they were already chopped into smaller blocks to make it easy to handle.
By 8 pm, cooking had started; Moorthy helped chop the vegetables, and Raghav helped Rakesh prepare the dishes. Fortunately, just like the first place where we stayed in Anchorage, this one also had all the utensils that you’d need for cooking.
“Rakesh is the chef. And Raghav is the sous chef,” we commented.
They kept rice, gobi-65 (cauliflower starters) and a cauliflower gravy. Add to that some potato chips we had and some drinks, and that was our dinner by the campfire.
“What’s that?” I asked Moorthy as he pulled something out of a small box.
“It’s a fire starter kit. Helps start the fire.” He sure had thought of everything when we were at the supermarket!
It was 9:30 pm, and we still had daylight – but it was cold outside. I had to wear a couple of layers: a sweatshirt and full-length pants. And I still felt cold. Rakesh, on the other hand, was wearing just one layer – a thin t-shirt and shorts! We spent some time sitting around the fire, warming ourselves, enjoying the food, and chatting.
We wrapped up at around 11 pm.
“Keep everything packed since we’ll have to check out in the morning.”
“Let’s start at 7.”
Check-in time was 7am, but the staff had said today that if we came by 7:30am, it would be ok.