You'll be glad they're around...

... when you need them. Found in a garage in downtown Anchorage on Friday.                    

A Long Sunset

Summer sunsets in Alaska linger and linger. We did a walk around downtown Anchorage and a four hour evening van ride with Alaska Photo Treks, which I highly recommend if you are a shooter and find yourself up this way. The local photographer who took us around, Jody Overstreet, was wonderful. She knows the area and her photographic technique inside out. These pictures were all taken Friday evening.

From top to bottom:

Anchorage sunset from the Chugash Mountains east of the city. It is a popular hang gliding point.

The Alaska Railroad train that comes up Turnagain Arm from Seward every evening. Jody knows exactly the right time.

A mountain stream a bit uphill from the railroad tracks.

Sea planes going in and out of Lake Hood. This is the only means of transportation to many places in the bush.

So many more to edit. And wait till you see the pix I got Saturday evening at the fishing harbor in Seward.                      

It's So Late . . .

Midnight here in Anchorage, 3 AM at home, 9 AM in most of Europe. Just got back to the B&B after a 4+ hour evening photography tour. Hundreds of pix and no time to edit. I took this one around mid day of locals salmon fishing in Ship Creek in the middle of town.  We gotta get to bed but there will be lots more. Down to Seward on the coast today.                        

Anchorage

All right, enough teasing. We got to our B&B in Anchorage, Alaska, something after 1 AM local time (4 AM body time) on Thursday. Going from St. Louis to here via Los Angeles is like flying from London to Rome by way of Helsinki, but the flights are way, way longer. After an off-kilter night, we got up and poked around the town. The city has about 300,000 people, the metro area 400,000. The whole state, twice as big as Texas, has less than a  million people. St. Louis City and County have more than that.

Most of these pictures are around 4th Avenue, the main street downtown. The next to last is on the coastal trail, very near where we are staying.

We're doing a photography walking tour of the downtown area this morning. In the evening, there is a four hour van trip down Cook Inlet for the big lens crowd. Sunset isn't until 10:21 PM. 

Lots more stops after here.