Departing the theater to merely gray skies instead of rainy ones, AK Kid and I decided to take a quick spin around Anchorage via City Trolley Tours, those bright red conveyances my son had been eyeing ever since we moved here five years ago. Departing from the Log Cabin Visitor Center on 4th Avenue, the trolley has been in operation since 1995, ferrying tourists around Anchorage on a one-hour, catch-all view of our fair city May through September. At $15 a pop for adults and $7.50 for kids 6-12, it isn't cheap, but off we went.
Our conductor/driver/guide was a lifelong Alaskan whose grandparents were original colonists to the Palmer area during the 1930's. With history on his side, we learned a heck of a lot about our own town while traveling along Westchester Lagoon, Lake Hood, Spenard, and back through downtown. Oddly enough, AK Kid was enthralled by the stories and kept his nose pressed against the large windows of the trolley, looking at Anchorage as if through new eyes, as perhaps he was. Hmm, there might be something to this tourist thing, after all. A few weeks remain before downtown Anchorage quiets its cacophony of summer. Take advantage, embrace our landscape, and be better for it. Click your ruby red X-Tra Tuffs together and repeat after me, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home..."
