5th Alaskan Stop - Wasilla

Sorry for the delay in new posts – I think I had ‘writer’s cramp’ or brain freeze or something like that.  Anyway, we moved on from Denali on Monday, June 13^th and arrived in Wasilla for a week.  As usual, we did see mountains.

We decided to spend a week here because Anchorage is close by (35 miles) and there are things to do here as well.  We had originally planned to stay at a CG in Anchorage but the prices were high, and, according to the park reviews that I read, most of them are ‘DUMPS.’  So we found a nice CG here but we do not have a sewer hookup so we will see how that goes later in the week when our tanks fill up.

We lucked out because they were having a barbecue that evening - they provide all the meat and the campers provide a dish to share.

We had salmon cooked three different ways on the grill, moose ribs,  Everything was delicious.  Someone even brought a rhubarb dessert!

On Wednesday we went to Anchorage and spent the day there.  The weather was cool but some sun.  We found a parking lot near the downtown mall.  This mural was on the side of the building next to the parking lot. 

We needed to do some shopping in JCPenney (of course), and then had lunch at the food court on the 4^th floor.

We also needed to find the ONLY Bank of America ATM (in Alaska) to get some cash.  We knew it was on the same street as the mall but just down the street.  So we walked a block or two and couldn’t find it so, back to the mall where we found another bank and asked them where the B of A ATM was.  Wouldn’t you know, it was up on the 4^th floor of the mall!  And almost right where we had lunch!!  Who knew??  Anyway, we got our cash and then did some more walking around the mall.

Later we walked around downtown looking for a quilt shop but didn’t find it. 
 We wanted to tour the ULU Knife Factory so we found the Visitor Center a couple of blocks away.  They have a tour bus (free) that takes you to their factory.

You could look into the production shop and watch them make everything.  Pretty cool.  Didn’t buy one though as we bought one somewhere on our previous trip to Alaska 12 years ago.

This was a display of the earliest known ULU knives and cutting board.

By the we got back to the Visitor Center, it started raining so we got wet getting back to the truck.  But we survived.