Sled dogs and a fantastic flight

After an early breakfast at The Lakefront Hotel in Anchorage the group departed in a comfortable large bus for the Iditarod Headquarters in Wasilla. This association organizes the Iditarod sled dog race, which will take place in about two weeks. 86 teams (1 musher and 16 dogs at the beginning) participate this year, about 20 % of the mushers being woman. We learned a lot about the background of the famous dog race and, fortunately, there was a sled dog team of two girls and their dogs outside (see pic), waiting for the dogs' medical check-up for Iditarod. Therefore, we were able to meet and greet and pet the dogs and get more information from real mushers.

On to Talkeetna, a little, incorporated town, esp. popular with climbers of Mt. Denali in summer. They use it as their headquarters, but, also cruiseship passengers from the Inside Passage to Seward (brought in by bus) often stay here. The Talkeetna Roadhouse is a legendary guesthouse and restaurant. Its owner, Tracy, is an unfailing source of information about this little town with its own radio station and a picturesque main street (see pics).

After lunch we experienced THE highlight of our trip: a flight over Mt. Denali. Talkeetna Air Taxi gave us a lift and the two of us were fortunate to have a small Cesna on our own. The rest of the group was flying in a larger 10-seater called "Otter".


Our female pilot was very experienced and knowledgeable, a trained mechanic and a true outdoors person. She did a great job flying into the mountains and over the glaciers of Mt. Denali. Thanks to blue skies and smooth air conditions we had a fantastic 1,5 hour flight and though we weren't able to land on one of the glaciers (they don't do it in winter), it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.


Denali, part of Denali National Park and Preserve, was formerly called Mount McKinley. With over 6.000 meters it is the highest mountain in North America and one of the so-called Seven Summits. Denali's landscape is a mix of forest, tundra and glaciers, rock, and snow at the higher elevations. The longest glacier is the Kahiltna Glacier.

Next stop was Vern Halter’s Dream a Dream sled dog kennel but, unfortunately, there was some conflict of date and time and therefore the owner had to cut it short. Because of the upcoming Iditarod race and dogs being in intense training now, we didn't experience a dog mushing ride, but only met with the dogs and talked to this famous musher and his wife, a veterinarian and musher, too. Both have already won several trophees in dog races and Vern is now training mushers and dogs. The approximately 40 dogs in his kennel were really friendly and beautiful dogs.

On the way back to Anchorage we stopped at the musk ox farm in Palmer. Musk oxes belong to the goat family - which I didn't know before - and have nothing to do with bison or regular cattle. They produce the most expensive wool - called Qiviut - in the world, very light and very warm. The owner of the farm showed us his animals on the pasture and talked about wool production and how the native people use it and what specific patterns of knitting they have.

After dinner at Turkey Red in Palmer - a fantastic mediterranean restaurant where I had goose (see pic) and Peter beef stew, preceded by many greek appetizers and a salad and followed by pies and cakes out of the own bakery - we were brought back "home" to Anchorage.

Anchorage here we come

Slept well for 5,5 hours. The hotel is very quiet and, as we noticed this morning, our room has a view towards a (frozen) lake where floatplanes usually start (not many right now). Since we were awake at 8:30 am, we decided to take the bus into town to explore the city. Not too cold (about -3 deg. C) and sunny, walkways icy everywhere, but not much snow. Ice sculptures in one of the public parts (see pic) show that it is constantly cold, though, in Alaskans' opinion, it's a too warm winter. Traffic is very sparse in the city, not much foot-traffic neither. Tourists like us sort of stick out. Cars are rather big trucks here, with special tires with spikes. Dowtown doesn't appear highly metropolitan or fancy, rather rustic with some sort of golddigger/pioneer atmosphere. One big shopping mall on the main axles of town, 4th/5th Ave., many outfitters, a couple of restaurants and many Alaskan souvenir shops.



The Alaska Railroad was constructed in 1915 and there is a nice, architectually remarkable railroad station (see pic) in town (see pic). Crossing the tracks we reached the Ulu Factory (pic right side),a knife factory - knives and wooden boards to go with, produced on the property. Ulu knifes had been traditionally used by Native people of the Arctic, they come in a naturally curved shape with a wooden (or stone) handle.

Anchorage, only founded in 1920, is not the capital of Alaska (Juneau), but the largest city in the state with a population of about 300.000. Considering that the whole state of Alaska has about 740.000 inhabitants, it's a real metropolis! Alaska has only became a State in 1959 (the 49th, just followed by Hawaii). In 1867 the U.S. Government had purchased Alaska from Russia for "only" $ 7.2 mio. - what a deal considering the vast stretch of land! Russian explorers were the first to inspect Alaska in the beginning of the 18th century and they have later established an active fur trade. Similar to the Spanish in the South they had built their forts and missions and had tried to "educate" the Native people.

About the native people - about 20 % of the population today - we learned a lot in the Anchorage Art Museum (see pic), which is much more about history than about art (only a couple smaller changing art exhibitions). In the Alaska Gallery it's all about Alaska's history, in the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center it's exclusively about Indians (Atabascans, Northwest Coast Indians - Haida and Tlingit - and Aleuts) and Inuit/Eskimo. Especially this section is very nicely done and very instructive (see pic)!We spent almost two hours in this museum before we took the bus (which is mostly used by local natives) back to the hotel.

Up North

In the air again… Got an early start this morning: up at 5 am, at the airport (MUC) at 7 am, plane started on time at around 10 am. All went smooth, no snow on the roads, no traffic jams or accidents on the autobahn, quick check-in and security check.

On to Alaska - one of the few U.S. States we’ve never been before. On one hand side looking forward to getting to know this northern-most state of America, on the other side, not sure about the cold and snow... We will join a 3-day so-called fam tour (arranged for participants of the Go West tourism summit) in Alaska before the tourism conference (Go West) will start on Monday.

Flight to ATL was a little bumpy, food was horrible as usual, but. at least, the plane was half-empty and we had two rows of seats just for the two of us. The other two planes were packed to the last seat, all on time, but, also many turbulences.

About 20 hours in the air in total, about 32+ hours up and going without any sleep we even arrived 45 min. earlier to Anchorage than scheduled, our luggage was there, hotel pick-up was fast, and at 2:15 am we eventually had a bed, tired to the bones.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas!

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!











Three days before Christmas! Weatherwise it is not really "Christmas-like", no snow, not even frost, more "spring-like", warm and partly sunny. Nevertheless, our stollen is half-eaten, our Christmas tree and decoration are all set up and tomorrow we'll pick up the goose for our Christmas meal. We are listening to Christmas songs on AFN 360 Internet Radio and trying to get things off the table still in 2015.

Also, we started planning our next trip starting on Feb. 17th to Anchorage/Alaska (a first!) and through the Northwestern part of the U.S. ending up in San Francisco. Though it certainly will be cold up there, we are looking forward to some new experience! So, stay tuned...and, Happy Holidays!

Farewell to NYC

After almost two weeks in NYC, spent at our friends' home in Harlem, our feet were hurting and our brains got exhausted. There is always so much to see and explore, that you never ever have enough time and always feel sort of unsatisfied not to have done/seen this or that in addition. The trip from Harlem to Newark International Airport (EWR)on Monday took us almost two hours though all went smooth. Had to change from the subway to the train at Penn Station and then to the AirTrain, which brought us to the terminal. Our plane (United Airlines B767-400) started about 30 min. late, but was on time in MUC. We were fortunate to be sitting in one of the front rows (Economy Plus), so that we had a little more leg space and less motor noise than further back on the plane.

With only about 7:20 flight time we didn't even try to sleep, instead watched some TV series (mostly culinary) and worked on the laptop, which is thanks to electric outlets between seats easy now. Arrived on time and, of course, it was much colder (about 34 F) in Munich and foggy and wet. Just what we expected for our welcome to Germany!

A place to remember: The 9/11 Memorial Site

Having visited the impressive, highly emotional 9/11 Museum last year – a real "must“! – we had the One World Observatory on our agenda this time. We encountered long waiting lines on Saturday morning in front of the building for the 9 am (first) entry (tickets are time-framed), but controls and elevator trip to the top were efficiently arranged and fast.


This observation deck is only open for a couple of months, situated on New York’s highest and new "signature tower“, 1 WTC, occupying the place of the old World Trade Center. It’s one of three observation decks in town - the others are on Rockefeller Center and on Empire State Building. We've been warned that it's rather "disney-like", but this was not true, or, at least not to an unpleasant degree: the space on the top deck is airy and roomy, windows floor to ceiling, views towards the islands and piers and to the North are gorgeous, and the few "show elements" (like a historical projection in the elevator or a video upon arrival on top) are short and instructive.


The new transportation hub for PATH (operating as a hub for trains to New Jersey) is a phantastic building with a wing-like construction (see pic below) and was designed by famous spain architect Santiago Calatrava. It is expected to open in 2016, after a couple of delays. Will see. While 1 WTC tower is rather plain and not really exciting from its architecture (planned by SOM), the PATH building is spectacular, and, also, the architecture of the 9/11 museum (which is underground) - the wavy, low building shown on the photo with the white rose - is an architecturally interesting building.


The footprints of the former twin towers of the World Trade Center form the "heart and soul" of the "9/11 Memorial": huge basins with waterfall-like fountains with engraved stone plates, citing the names of all the victims of the terrorist attacks. A park surrounds the two basins.

To us, it is still depressing to visit here, knowing the old towers well, having been up on top of them, and having visited NYC shortly before and after 9/11/2001. Now the area is packed with tourists; not sure whether all of them know about the real significance of this place and about the fact, that many New Yorkers aren't able yet to visit here because of all the emotions and memories involved. "The Sphere“, a sculpture by German sculptor Fritz Koenig, which was originally standing between the towers, only suffered minor damage on Sept. 11th and is currently set up in Battery Park (see picture). Possibly it will later be moved to the 9/11 site.

The former World Financial Center, closeby, is now called „Brookfield Place“ (named for the new owner). Good thing is, that the formerly pretty inattractive center, which was mostly known for its palm court and its views towards the Hudson River and the marina, was modernized and updated inside. Now a new French Food Hall, called "Le District" was installed, with bakery, butcher store, cheese vendor, café and other deli departments. In addition, a food court with top-notch food stands, "Hudson Eats“, is inviting on the upper floor.



After our visit to the WTC Site, we walked to the southern tip of Manhattan, to Battery Park, with the new SeaGlass Carousel (see pic), the new Pier A, historic Fort Clinton and the popular promenade – one of the best places in town to watch the water traffic at the confluence of East and Hudson River; many tourists are boarding the ferries to Liberty and Ellis Island here.

Exploring neighborhoods

Time was flying. Friday to Sunday we spent exclusively in Manhattan's neighborhoods, in the Village (Greenwich or West and in the East Village), in Midtown, but we also we explored a little more of Harlem (picture of the mural was taken on 125th St.) and revisited a couple of museums in the Upper East Side along the so-called Museum Mile.




One of them was the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, which was just reopened after an extensive renovation. This museum is well-worth being visited, always shows great exhibitions in an unusual ambience. The art collection was founded in 1896 by the Hewitt sisters and it is located in the Andrew Carnegie Mansion, a gorgeous Georgian-style mansion built from 1899 to 1902 with 64 (!) rooms. With the renovation they also introduced top-notch electronic equipment, fancy electronic pens, with which you can play around on computerized tables, design patterns and, also, it's possible to scan information and later load it down in a personalized version by using the code on the ticket.


Afterwards we stopped by at the Metropolitan Museum and the Guggenheim (see pics) and then jumped on a bus (for lack of a subway line on the western edge of Central Park). It took forever to get down to the Village in the dense traffic of Manhattan.

The Village, our next stop, has changed considerably since our first visit and is still changing. This formerly hippie/gay/a little weird neighborhood is nowadays much more "settled" and appears "renewed" and a bit sterile. Old institutions, restaurants and shops, are gone and there are only spots (like St. Mark's Square) where the old colorful and screwed-up feeling is still there.

At Washington Square (pic) with its famous huge arch (pic) and street performers every day, we enjoyed a short break in the sun before we had lunch in a hole in the wall called "Arepa Factory", serving arepas and cachapas, both venezuelan street food, here in an excellent fresh and creative variety.

Fifth Ave. was packed (pic), and, so was the department store Macy's (which is famous for it's eleborate, always changing window decorations, this year, scenes from the Peanuts, see pic). The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are the time when most people shop for good deals. Even around and in St. Patrick's Cathedral (see pic) huge crowds were gathering and it was especially hard to get close to the famous Rockefeller Center Christmas tree (pic).