My Great Alaskan Adventure

I spent a few days last week visiting my brother in Anchorage. He's been up there for about 3 years for school, though he stays on during the summer as well. This summer he is working as a dishwasher in his school's cafeteria. He had to work almost every day we were there, but since his shift is 5:30 AM to 1:30 PM we still had the afternoons to do things. Plus, since the sun never completely sets, the day seems like it has more hours.

The first day whole day I was there (Wednesday), we went to the Native Heritage Center, which has an outdoor exhibit with recreations of 6 different native dwellings. Then we went for a hike:
His band played that evening, so we went to see them; they were pretty good- very different from bands Carl has played from in the past. The next morning, I biked to the Anchorage Art and History museum and the Russian Orthodox museum. The Russian museum was small and pretty lame but free and interesting enough, and the Anchorage Museum had a great exhibit detailing Alaskan life through the years, from the ice age to the present. When Carl got off of work, we drove to Seward, which is about 3 hours away. Along the way, we stopped at the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. There were all sorts of cute and uncuddly creatures (bear, moose, musk ox, elk, bison, caribou, etc) but my favorite was this little deer:

Seward was an ok little town; pretty small and kinda boring, but the drive was worth it:

I saw a couple of bald eagles in the trees, which was the first actual wildlife I had not paid to see. We had dinner at an Italian/Greek restaurant and Carl took me to a beach, where we skipped stones for a little bit. The scenery was pretty much what you think of when you think of Alaska:

We got home around 11 and watched some YouTube before going to bed. Carl didn't have to be at work until 10 the next day, and I went for a nice bike ride through Earthquake Park (the landscape was altered by the 1964 earthquake) until he got home. We went to the gym, and then the drinking began. We hit up the Midnight Sun brewery and then went out on the town.

Saturday morning, we woke up, rehydrated, talked about how hungover we were, and then drove to the airport. So, in a nutshell, that was my trip! It was fun. Today, we went to the Washington Brewers Festival (more beer...) and tomorrow classes begin again!