A Viking’s Walkabout – Day 20 – Viking Navigation LLC

A day, a dinner, and some shopping in Anchorage while War Bus is in the shop.

Distance: Blessedly zero

Time: 0 hours

I pulled into Anchorage and delivered War Bus to the BMW dealership in Anchorage. Time for an oil change (remember, the car had 350 miles on it when I left Orange County…). Also having them take the patched tire off and put on a new tire on the spare wheel, check the alignment, etc. My most disappointing (though not as critical) malfunction would not happen for a few days yet, alas.

My biggest no picture fail: Dinner at 49th State Beer Garden with my cousins. Great food, sunny (thank the Lord! Sun finally!). Delicious. I had fond memories of the Crows Nest on top of the Hotel Captain Cook from my visit 20-ish years before. I made friends with Rhino at the bar. He was cool, but the bar wasn’t as cool as I remembered. That night, as I was typing up my Winslow, Ariz. post, I heard the guy from Missouri next to me — who had had a hell of a horrible summer — say, “I plan to take it easy.“

The next day, I went to Ray’s Place. Great Vietnamese food and my third Guy Fieri place on this trip.

Walking out of Ray’s Place, I realized it was right across the street from Chilkoot Charlie’s, where I had a great time 20 years ago.

I stayed in the Hotel Captain Cook. It’s a nice place, but its a little lousy with cruise passengers. Lots of Chiefs fans, however, so my Royals hat got me a lot of shout outs.

Waiting for an Uber I studied the map of Cook’s journeys in the hotel lobby. Something about this appealed to me… hahaha. In a couple days I would listen to the audio book for “Farther Than Any Man,” by Martin Dugard. Spoiler: Cook was not a great person. He did tend to go places just to say he had been there… hmmm. I think I might understand something about him.

That night I had a great dinner with Bill O’Leary, President and CEO of Alaska Railroad. When an executive suggests a restaurant hidden in an office building (Simon & Seaforts), you know it’s gonna be pretty good. It was. Bill is hilarious and a great conversationalist, but he made me tell the story of the whole journey to this point. While embarrassing (and long), it was a good rehearsal for these posts, and I redoubled my efforts on documenting this journey with his encouragement.