Tales from the Crank

This weekend I had my first experience bar hopping in Anchorage.

On Saturday night I mounted my trusty Schwinn and headed into the depths of downtown Crankchorage with my friend Evan. As you rabid blog followers know, Evan is from U of Cinci and works in my office. He has been here for about 2 months so he knows the city much better than I. He first took me to this place called The Snowgoose Grill, coincidentally the same name as the restaurant my sister worked at in St. Mary's, MT, but really not on the same level. The place is pretty nice, however, it has a big outdoor patio with a view of Snowgoose Mountain and a bunch of good beers on tap. Unfortunately somehow they were out of like every one on a Saturday night at 11pm. Who knows?

So we left and went to this bar called Rumrunners that we had biked by and was just blasting music. What's weird about biking around at 11:45 or midnight in Anchorage is that it's bright as day. So you have to keep checking your watch to remind yourself that it is in fact an appropriate time to go out to the bar and not time for the early bird special.

Rumrunners was wild. At first I thought it was part strip club because there were these two scantily clad women dancing on a stage above the dance floor and fog machines going off and really really loud Soulja Boy fading into Lady Gaga. Turns out this place just wants to be Miami beach so they hire dancers and have brightly colored lights. Best part about this place was beer specials (5.75 for Alaskan 22oz, best deal I have found in Crank town) and widly good looking bartenders. This place along with the next spot we hit up was filled with tourists. Tourist season is not in full effect but certainly there were a bunch of them out this weekend and I'm sure more to come.

What was wild about the next bar, The Avenue, was that there was this whole crew of people in Moose hats. I kid you not, maybe 12 people, men and women, in those ridiculous hats. Click on that link its worth the mental image.

So we ended the night around 2:30 and biked back to my apartment to crash. Even at 2:30 it's still bright enough to the point that you don't even remotely need a bike light and most streets don't have street lamps. This is an absolutely bizarre place. Land of the midnight sun, land of the sun period doesn't matter what your watch says, the suns out.

Sunday was boring. Basketball game sucked. Even if you are a die hard Laker fan you gotta admit that game was a sleeper after the middle of the second quarter. Lakers just dominated and proved they were worthy champs. Maybe Orlando shouldn't have totally given away Game 4 and bricked a lay-up (albeit a tough one) to lose Game 2.

One thing I did learn this weekend is what happens to the homeless population during the winter. Turns out a fair number of them die. They freeze to death. Wild! So if Eskimo Holden Caulfield were to ask where the hobos go when the world freezes over, I got an answer for him now and its a depressingly morbid one.

Today at work I turned in my draft of my Determination Of Eligibility for the Soapy Smith Parlor Museum (see 'Nerd Images' post for more info). I got positive feedback and a genuine compliment about my ability to write. It was a great feeling. I also spent 6 1/2 hours scanning photos and putting them into an excel spread sheet. It was anything but a great feeling. But if you want pictures of Steamers on the Yukon River or early buildings in Circle or Eagle Alaska I can show you a very well organized document. Today I organized 120 images and I am a bout 1/6 of the way through all that I have to do. Not including slides. Shoot me.

This weekend I am going to go up to Fairbanks with Evan and his roommates who also work in the office but I haven't met yet. It's the summer solstice on Saturday-Sunday and there are two musical festivals in Fairbanks and just a generally large party. Should be awesome and it's a six hour drive so I should get to see a whole lot of Alaska. I am super excited and plan on taking tons of pictures and since it will be sunny for 50 straight hours I won't need to worry about any of them coming out poorly during the Midnight baseball game.

More to come later this week including a theory I developed about the appropriateness of head nods and the highly anticipated Guess What Time It Is Contest. I sure all (3-7) of you are excited.