Day 12: September 1, 2000
Anchorage and Flight Home

When we woke up it was rainy and cloudy, so it didn't seem like a good day to go up to Flattop Mountain to see a view of the city. That was a little disappointing. I called my sister to find out whether her kids would want Alaska gifts. It turned out both my sisters were away for the weekend at some cabins in the Poconos, so I ended up talking to M&D first (they'd gotten our postcards and liked them, which is nice). Mom thought I was crazy to be thinking about Xmas gifts for the kids now. She gave me the number of the place they were staying anyway, so I called there. I ended up speaking to Nancy and she had an "of course, good idea" reaction, which was a funny contrast. She thought Ann's kids would like Alaska shirts or sweatshirts and Laura would like fleece, but she said David wouldn't think it's cool so I shouldn't waste my money. She said the only thing he wants is cash. I asked her why he didn't like stuff like this and she said "because he's an idiot," which was amusing. After I'd called, Walendo called his Irish sister to find out more about what her boys would want, so it looked like we would be spending the morning back in the gift shops getting yet more stuff.

We left our stuff at the hotel and went downtown and scurried from shop to shop finding just the right things. I couldn't keep myself from buying a few things for other people and for myself. Things were much cheaper here, and again, with no sales tax it was hard to resist. Finally we managed to finish our spree, and now of course we had a whole bunch more things to pack. But I told Walendo not to worry, since as master packer, I knew I could find a way to get it all to fit. We went back to the hotel to check out and loaded up the car. Then we decided to get lunch. Walendo had been craving Chinese and there was a Chinese lunch buffet place, but I wanted to get a sandwich at a place I'd seen. We decided to go the Chinese place first where he'd eat and then I'd get something at the sandwich place later. We had plenty of time, so it seemed fine. At the chinese place there were two silk kimonos on the wall that were magnificent. I kept looking at the beautiful and intricate colors and pattern -- pretty amazing. (I remembered reading about them in "Memoirs of a Geisha" so it was nice to see what they had been describing.) Then on to the sandwich place where I got a turkey sandwich on a bagel that was good. While we were sitting there, a woman at another table got up after she'd gotten her food and just left without touching anything (leaving cash on the table). We imagined scenarios of what had happened.

We had seen a movie theater and checked the paper to find out times, so we had decided to go to a 3:30 showing of The Patriot with Mel Gibson. With such crummy weather it seemed like a perfect thing to do. We still had a bunch of time, but we figured we'd meander and check out the houses. As we made our way south of town, we discovered the big suburban shopping area and noticed a Barnes and Noble. We went in to browse and had to resist buying anything cuz by now we really were laden down and the last thing we needed was to bring home books. But Walendo bought a CD. Afterward, we went over to the theater not far away and went to the movie. We were there early so we played some air hockey in the game room: Walendo won. The movie turned out to be disappointing. Much too formula-like, oh well. But the good thing was that it was long, so it was after 6:30 when we left. Next it was time to go to Cold Stone (finally!) so we made our way over there. I was using the map I'd drawn based on what Andy had shown me from the map segments in the phone book (I had to kind of piece it together from multiple maps) and Walendo was using the emap. When we got really close, he said it was to the left but Holly had said it was in the shopping center on the right, so I went right and there it was. So much for emap. :-( But the good thing was that I got to eat ice cream at Cold Stone. The deal with them is that you choose an ice cream and some mixins and they mush it into the ice cream for you. I got chocolate (of course) with oreos. It was quite good. While we were there, a bottle of root beer crashed on the floor seemingly out of nowhere. Glass went all over the store. Turned out it had fallen from the counter. We were the only ones there at the time, but while they were cleaning it up, people came in and just crunched on the glass and walked in the puddle like it didn't matter. Odd.

After the yummy ice cream (did I mention that I liked it?) we headed to Andy & Holly's place. The emap seemed to be pointing a little off from where I thought it was, and it turned out again that my map was right. Walendo thinks he'd plugged in Andy's old address, so maybe that's why. Anyway, we were greeted by their big German Shepherd and smaller mixed breed, both of whom were very friendly. When we saw the house we realized just how big a remodelling project they were talking about. They had bought a 70s ranch house and were turning it into a more contemporary open-style house, which was a big deal. They'd just about finished the kitchen, knocking down a wall and putting in an island so that it was open with the family room, putting in new cabinets and eventually flooring. He said the wall they'd taken down was load bearing so he'd had to put in a beam across the whole house to support it. He'd done this himself, which was impressive. I guess being a civil engineer has its advantages. Andy asked us which choice of two fake hardwood styles we liked for the kitchen and we all ended up going with the one Holly liked better. They'd also knocked a wall down to a half-wall on the other side of the house at that level so that, except for one bedroom, the whole middle floor was open, which looked much better. They'll probably use that area for a TV and such. Oh, they'd also retiled the fireplace and were deciding whether to do the tile on the ledge below it, which I thought they should do. In any case, it was really impressive how much they were taking on. I could see why Holly was worried about it being a burden that would keep them from ever travelling again!

While we were there another friend of Andy's stopped by and they talked about the fishing trip. Andy had gone up that day to Talkeetna with relatives who were in town for the week. He said he was disappointed that the fish were spoiled and they had to throw most of the back. The guide should have known and taken them elsewhere so Andy wasn't that thrilled. (I hadn't realized that live fish can become spoiled.) After his friend left, he gave us the rest of the tour and showed us all the other stuff they were going to do. It was three levels with a whole upstairs section for the master bedroom. I'd love to see it again after they've finished. Holly seemed jealous that we don't have any projects to do at our house. :-) We sat around and chatted some more. They told us about their plans to come down to SF and showed me a guide book of the city. It was funny cuz I wasn't sure what you'd tell someone to do, but looking at the book most of the things rang a bell, like "oh yeah, I guess you could go there!" We had to leave by 9pm so we could return the car without having a penalty for having it an extra day, so we said our goodbyes and headed out.

We made our way back to the airport, and once again as we got to the car return place there was a cart available, so Walendo grabbed it and we loaded up all our crap. Returning the car was no problem and then we went upstairs to check in. There was a very small line and everything went smoothly -- they didn't complain about weight or anything. Then we made our way to the gate at about 10pm. Three hours to go. At that point I realized that we were making a stopover in Seattle, which was kind of a drag for a red-eye flight. Oh well. We sat and listened to Harry Potter for a while, and we made a few outings to get hot chocolate or Burger King (guess who got what), and eventually it was time to load the plane. Amazingly enough, the flight took off on time. The plane was completely full so there was no hope of lying down in the back, so both of us didn't get much sleep, though I think I did better than he did. When we stopped in Seattle, I lay out on a side of seats and got maybe 45 minutes of sleep before people came in again. Finally, at 8am we arrived in SF, groggy. When we were heading to the baggage claim I grabbed a smarte cart that was being left by the Xray machines, and once again we never had to carry the bags. Our bags arrived just fine, we wheeled them over to a cab and we were home in about 15 minutes. No Libby there to greet us, but home sweet home. (After catching up with mail, finances and some sleep we went down to pick her up at Russ & Judy's and she did her big howling greeting for us.)

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