Earthquake in Tent City

Apparently there was an earthquake this morning. The quake struck with a magnitude of 5.2 shortly after 11 am. Since we had Thursday off, Becca and I headed downtown to check out some of the shops, so we did not feel the quake while driving in the car. Once downtown, we headed to one of the malls which is multiple levels but a lot smaller than I expected. Gap had a huge sale, so we got a couple things to wear for rotation. I also found kid's Pumas on sale and had to invest in some new ones. Don't worry, Mom, I'll get rid of an old pair back in KC. 

Old (dirty) Pumas and New (clean) Pumas :)

After shopping we checked out the street vendors that were selling Reindeer Dogs, and of course had to try one. They were so good! I now understand why Alaskan's stick reindeer in just about everything.

Reindeer dog with sauteed onions

We then went for the Anchorage City Trolley Tour where we learned a lot of the history behind Anchorage (formerly called Tent City). I'm not even sure our guide took a breath while narrating the tour. She really knew the history of the place well, and we're pretty sure she made up a lot of things too. The most interesting part was driving by Lake Hood Seaplane base where all the small planes are stored on land or water in their slips. They average about 200 flights per day.

After the tour, we hit up some gifts shops to check out what the locals were selling. My brain was on overload as the stores were packed with tourist and even more full of tshirts, hoodies, jerky, keychains, mugs, figurines, etc. At this point, I was tired and ready to head back to the apartment.

That evening Jessica, Becca, and I headed to Horse Trekkin Alaska for a trail ride. I was given Duke, a 16 year old Morab (Morgan and Arabian). Apparently I was paired up with the youngest and most curious of the horses who wanted to run the entire time... a little like myself :) Tina, our guide, took almost 90 pictures of us on the trail so you'll have to check out the other ones. Since there were only 4 of us riding, she allowed us to run the hills with the horses if we liked. This was my favorite part. Once Duke got going, he didn't really want to stop. During one of our uphill runs, Duke sprinted to the top of the hill ahead of the guide and her horse. By the time the others had caught up, all they could see was the back end of my horse between two pine trees off the trail. He definitely liked to "bail from the trail" which I didn't mind too much.

Me on Duke, Becca on Doc, and Jessica on Curly

Once we finished the ride, we headed back downtown to grab dinner at an Irish pub with a live Irish band that seemed to multiply people and instruments each time we looked up.  It was kind of sad to have our last dinner with the four of us as Jess and Celeste leave on Friday. I'm definitely going to miss the two of them. We had such a great time together, and I'm really glad to have met them.

Overall, it was a really fun day off from work. I'm not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow only because Fridays are now like a combination between Monday and Friday, the start and the end. But I guess, when Friday is done, it's the weekend and that means... Halibut fishing in Homer, AK!!