Anchorage

Well, it was repair time when we got here.  The tow brake cable was causing trouble again, so I had to go to the hardware store and get more wire rope and fittings.  The connecting fork on one side of the truck had been spread to the point where it was getting hard to put the retaining pin in when hooking up the truck and needed to be pounded straight.  It was easy to find what I needed and I returned to the rv.  Great consternation and commotion.  Neighbor guys and Pat waiting for me to tell me that water was pouring out from under the rv until they shut off the water heater supply.  Oh, joy!  Investigation revealed that the water heater had probably sprung a leak.  Believe it or not, the first place I called had one in stock that was a direct replacement.  Only $864, gulp.  It was late enough that they were closing so I arranged to get it the next day.  Before getting the new heater, I decided to take the old one out and make sure it was bad.   Good news, the outlet line from the heater was bulged and split.  They used the same lines you use in a house to connect water faucets.  Back to the hardware store....$12 and change replaced both the supply and outlet lines to the heater.  Put that puppy in and was back in business.....not.....no gas to the heater.  Now I have a bunch of halibut in the freezer of the fridge that also runs on gas....need gas bad!  So it turns out that there is a solenoid valve on the LP tank that is held open by the batteries and has a switch for emergency shut off.  That is how I turned the gas off to disconnect the water heater.   So the switch is bad.  Shorted that puppy out and we had gas again.  Oh, by the way, batteries go down, no propane to anything.  Surprise!  I wrote that down in the book.  After all that, I got to fix the tow bar, which was easy.  One whack and the connecting fork was straight. 

Third day in Anchorage and we got a chance to drive around town and see the place.  It sits right on the Cook Sound with the ocean to the West and a range of mountains to the East.  The setting would remind you of Seattle, nice, very nice.  There are about 300,000 people here and its the largest city in the state.  So its the hub for a lot of things.  At the same time, it has moose and bear in town and the Ship Creek River runs right past downtown.  So, when the salmon are running people are there on their lunch hour catching fish. 

We visited the Alaskan Native Heritage Museum, an interesting place that portrays the historical and modern life of native people that span the Bearing Sea.  They reach from the west coast of Alaska to Greenland.  At the museum, each of the major tribes has an area representing them in an outdoor area around a lake.  The first stop was the Tlingit long house.  Since these people historically inhabit the lower part of the state along the coast, they build with wood.  The house was made entirely of cedar and was a delight to enter.  The entry was one log that must have been four feet in diameter that stood on end with a rectangular hole cut through the log as an entry.  That was a beautiful piece of wood.  Unfortunately, the museum was closing and I had to hurry through the rest of the exhibits.  However, the kayaks they build are works of art.  They make a frame of wood strips that are bound together with sinew.  Then skins are stretched over the frame and sewn together.  Some type of material that looks like varnish is used to coat the whole thing. 

So, after all this its off to the Kenai peninsula and points south.