Thursday did not start well. I had been so tired the night before that I'd left my eyeglasses at the foot of the bed. So when I woke up and started to stir, they fell in the floor. I was wandering around and felt something under my right heel. Next thing I knew, I was holding a flattened pair of eyeglasses. Great. Nerd emergency. Fortunately, I was able to twist and bend them back to shape, but it was a scare I could have done without.
In the morning we hopped in the truck and headed for Anchorage, that famous city only half an hour from Alaska. This was to be the day we did the bookstores, the hobby shop and a couple other things. So we did. Title Wave has remodeled and rearranged quite a bit since my last visit, and though it's not quite the wonder it was when I first encountered it a few years ago, it's still worth the visit. I dropped surprisingly little cash in there, finding a couple books about bush flying (gotta read up about next career, y'know), a book about the town of Whittier, and a deck of these, which are well worth the purchase.
After a quick lunch, it was off to PANC to do some looking at airplanes. As we were about to drive beneath the approach to 14, we noticed a 747 on final. My friend stopped the truck and we grabbed our cameras just in time to catch this monster screaming right over us. Wow.
So we drove around a little more, and ended up parking and hiking up the hillside to the corner of the cargo ramp and 14-32. (This is the same place the famous Tupolev incident took place.) From there, you can get some rather stunning photos. All I had was my little point-and-shoot, but even with it, I managed to do okay:
And Everts even obliged us with a DC-6, which did a run-up in front of us, showing all the youngsters in the background how it's really done.
Then it was over to the other side of 14-32 and up on the hillside to catch the afternoon departures...
...and an arrival or two.
We also got another treat when one of Everts' C-46s, "Dumbo," came rumbling out. There's no mistaking this one when she starts down the runway.
Soon, though, things turned into a parade of big brown airplanes, and when things all started to look the same, we took our leave. We stopped in one of the local hobby shops for a little while, and then started out for home. I gave hubby a quick phone call while we were in cell phone range and checked on things back home. It had been a busy day, but fun.
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