Parking and Driving

Sunday we explored a few of Anchorage's many, many parks. First up was Earthquake park, which features a nice walk and an overgrown view of places that were severly disrupted by the big 1964 earthquake, as well as a somewhat overgrown outlook over Cook Inlet and toward Anchorage's downtown and midtown. The park is situated near the Airport, so it is around the inlet's curve from the main body of the city, while still being in Anchorage. The location also makes it ideal for plane watching, as both large passenger and cargo jets as well as small planes line up for landing over this area. The area is very wooded and intersects with the Tony Knowles Coastal trail. In the current climate of roughly one bear attack per day, it also kind of creeped us out. However, there was a lot of activity on the trail, so we put the odds at a reasonable level that we probably wouldn't see any bears.

The second park we went to is just a bit up the road, and I'm actually not sure it really is a park. It is more of a scenic overlook on the edge of a seriously decaying cliff. The warning signs are not kidding...it looks like the bluff is falling away at a pretty steady pace. We stayed well back, but the view of the inlet was incredible. There was a parking lot, a "You are here" type sign, and a small sign that said "Airport Park", but for some reason it didn't look much like a park. More like an official scenic outlook. But that is fine, as the outlook was indeed scenic, and it was a very clear day.

The third park we visited was the Arnold L. Muldoon park, which was basically a path through the woods. It was much quieter than the other two parks we visited, making the woods even creepier, though there is much less underbrush in this forest, making for better visibility. If you like quiet walks in wooded area, this would be the one to go for of the three we visited on this outing. Although this is not an official feature of the park, our walk was enhanced by a series of things some person or persons had thrown away along the trail. Most mysterious of all were pages from a book which I believe was called The Honeymoon. It looked very much like someone had ripped out all the pages and then strewn them in big wads along the path. So we occupied ourselves making up stories about what had led to this literary eviceration.

Anchorage has, as I previously mentioned, many many parks strewn liberally throughout the city. One I lobbied hard to visit is Russian Jack park, but we did not get there on this outing. Next time! I am mainly curious who Russian Jack was (if he is a specific person) or if this is a name that all Russians in the area were called for some reason, or what. Also, why is the park named that. I count on finding an informative plaque at the park to solve this mystery for me!