Anchorage Outdoor Market

Leslie Saturday, July 26, 2008

Rain, rain, and more rain. The local news reports that the summer of 2008 has experienced record rain and colder temperatures. Yes, we agree - it’s been raining non-stop. Today the NOAA predicted scattered showers – well, the showers scattered everywhere we were!

We wanted to visit the Anchorage Outdoor Market. The Outdoor Market is mostly venders selling "flea market" type stuff. We didn’t buy anything.



Notice the raindrops.



There was an interesting station for all the dogs.



It rained our entire trip to Anchorage. Yes, it continued to pour rain for the hour we spent visiting the Outdoor Market. We were dressed in our Gore-tex jackets but unfortunately my jacket had given up. Eventually even Gore-tex gets sufficiently saturated (or dirty) that it no longer works. After the Farmer’s Market we stopped at REI to purchase some spray-on water-proofing. I selected the larger container – it’s not like it will never rain again in Alaska!

We wandered in downtown Anchorage for awhile but the rain was really something else. Robert did attempt to catch this fish—???



Driving back towards Palmer we decided to check out another campground. Near Eagle River I had seen a highway sign for a campground. We were thinking that it would be nice to find a place closer to Anchorage for Monday night so that we don’t have to come all the way back to Palmer. The campground is a state park, no hook ups, but only $15/night. We saw a few sites that we could fit in so we may return there on Monday. And the rain continued...

Oh, our other activity in Anchorage was to get diesel fuel for the truck. We were really empty; we hadn’t gotten fuel in over two weeks. Okay, this hurts but we put 55 gallons of diesel fuel in the truck at a cost of $5.12 per gallon. That’s with the Safeway 10 cent per gallon discount. OUCH!

When we got back to Palmer we enjoyed a delightful dinner of left-over cold salmon and rice. Mmm... I think that we eat better on the road than at home in Colorado.

Off to the Street Fair in Anchorage

Robert, Saturday, July 26
Today we went to Anchorage. We had a whole list of things we needed to do. Specifically we wanted to mail the latest replaced water pump back to get a refund, pick up a FedEx package, get fuel, and go to the street fair. We decided to go today as the weather forecast was for rain in the morning changing to scattered showers in the afternoon. As the forecast was exactly the same as for Sunday, we went today. It did rain all morning long as forecasted. After we were a few miles down the road, I realized that I had forgotten the invoices to send with the water pump. Scratched sending that today. We kept on going and headed for the street fair. While we walked through the various booths, it continued to rain, sometimes rain a lot but never turning into scattered showers. Maybe it was the rain but I was disappointed with the fair. The last time we were there, I remembered a lot of booths with interesting things. This time I didn’t see anything like that. So in a downpour, we headed to pick up the FedEx package. On the way we passed REI and as Leslie’s GoreTex jacket had soaked through, we stopped to pick up some spray on water proofing. Of course, once there we had to get a few more essential things. I got another shirt like those I bought before we went to Brooks Camp. We also got some spray on bug repellant that goes on clothes rather than skin. It is supposed to last through several washings. Finishing up at REI, we headed to FedEx. We got the package and headed for fuel. On the way there we passed Costco and Leslie wanted to stop so we did. Then we headed for fuel. We wanted to get to the station where we could get a ten cents a gallon discount. We got fuel (55 gallons @ $5.059 per gallon) and headed back home. Given that most stations around here are charging as much as 40 cents per gallon more, that seemed like a pretty good deal. On the way back we checked out a state campground to see if we would fit in any of the sites. We may stay there on Monday night as we need to get the water pump fixed on Monday and we have an appointment to get the trailer suspension adjusted on Tuesday. It would save us hauling the rig back to Palmer on Monday and then back to Anchorage on Tuesday. After we finish on Tuesday, we plan to head south and Palmer is to the Northeast of Anchorage. We got back to the trailer and it was still raining. So much for "scattered showers." We were in rain all day long.