Wednesday, June 22 Anchorage Botanical Garden

We had breakfast in the Downtown Deli and Cafe. We both chose grilled sourdough sandwiches of scrambled eggs, bacon, and cheddar cheese accompanied by fresh fruit – really good! It is highly that we both choose the same thing. We walked to the nearby tourist office and had a delightful chat with the three ladies staffing the office.  They gave us some good advice and were intrigued that we had traveled by car all the way from Maryland.

Jim has made a trip to the Toyota dealer to see about getting the oil changed in our Prius.  It’s time to have that done.  The dealer performed several routine tests and the car passed with flying colors.  Ardith has been working on the computer while he is gone.

Our main activity today was a visit to the Alaska Botanical Garden.  The land had been a military training facility in the 40s and 50s, but that use was abandoned.  The Garden received the land in 1986.

This is very different from the gardens we saw in British Columbia. The majority of the land is in a somewhat natural state with a series of wooded trails connecting gardens that are not as formal as most special gardens.  We grew to like that approach a lot, but were somewhat taken aback by it.

The special gardens were indeed special places.  We especially liked the rock garden area.

Jim was fascinated by the fact that many of the plants that are blooming now had been gone for days or weeks in our yard in Maryland before we started our trip a month ago!

A real curiosity is Canadian Dogwood.  Its leaves and bracts (flower-like parts) look exactly like the ones in the trees in our yard, but are much smaller.  Instead of being a tree, it grows only 5 or 6 inches tall!

There are some especially beautiful plants that don’t grow in Maryland.

We also enjoyed seeing the beginnings of new cones on spruce trees.

There was a spider web in the middle of a huge leaf that had very little form to it, but the spider was lurking under the web.

During World Ward II, both the military and local authorities were fearful of a Japanese attack.  The response was to get the citizens to dig lots of fox holes.  Several of those are easily distinguishable on the property over 60 years later,

We walked the 2 km nature trail that is partly in and partly outside the garden property.  It was a wonderful place for a walk in the woods.  Even though the vegetation is completely different, it had the same feeling as walking the trails of Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, one of Jim’s volunteer haunts.

The nature trail crossed the trail where the famous Iditarod dog sled race is run.

There were no huskies in sight, but we found strong evidence a moose had been by very recently – a pile of extremely fresh scat, footprints by the side of a stream and urine further along the trail.  Ardith wanted to go back the opposite way lest we meet the moose, Jim was disappointed that we didn’t actually see or hear it.  We did continue along the trail.  When we saw someone from the staff, we did as requested on signs and informed them of the details of our sighting.  The woman we talked to was glad that it was outside the fenced area of the garden.  A few weeks ago, one got in the garden and it took 6 men 2½ hours to get it out.

Back in the city, we enjoyed the many plantings in the downtown area.

Jim had seen a very brief write up of a restaurant called Orso (Italian for bear) and wanted to know more.  After our excellent dinner last night, we took a walk that led us by Orso and we decided that was where to go tonight.  This was an incredibly good choice.  Jim had Cashew Crusted Fresh Alaskan Halibut that was served in a creamy golden raisin and caper sauce and accompanied by red peppers and cous-cous.  Fabulous!  Ardith loved her Chicken Parmesan with an intriguing vegetable herb capellini. 

The meal was so good, we felt obligated to test their desserts.  Ardith quickly decided on their Molten Chocolate Cake topped with vanilla ice cream, white chocolate shavings and ganache.  Jim had a really difficult time choosing among 4 things.  Usually there are only one or two desserts that interest him.  At the last minute he settled on a Triple Berry Panna Cotta – three berries blended with cream and sugar into a very stiff mixture, topped with lime curd, strawberry slices and whipped cream and served with a lemon poppy cookie.  This was easily among the top 5 desserts he has ever had.

 On our walk back from the restaurant, we saw how the locals keep warm inthe winter.