I visited Juneau four years earlier. This time, I wanted to visit Anchorage. That served two goals of mine. One, to visit each state at least twice and spend a night in a different town (Hawaii is the exception to this in that I only visited it once but spent the night on three islands). The other was to photograph the campus signs on two campuses here (and they just happen to be adjacent to each other).

I did drive the area around Anchorage plus visited the only national park in the state that I will ever get to visit, this one being the Kenai Fjords south of Anchorage. Visitor center was closed but the water area was still viewable.

Being here is now the furthest north I have been on Earth. Hawaii is both the furthest west and furthest south I have ever been. The northeast tip of Prince Edward Island is the furthest east unless I finally visit Newfoundland someday (and I plan to do just that!).

Being in Anchorage allowed me to complete two travel goals. One, photographing the campus signs of the 467 largest colleges/universities in the U.S. It was a great feeling when I photographed the University of Alaska Anchorage sign (which is probably the second best looking one I have seen) to complete the seven-year project. The second goal completed here is spending the night in two different towns per state. Of the 50, only Hawaii was done in a single trip although I did visit three islands there. All other states got the second town on a different/separate trip to the state.

I got one entire day to spend doing whatever in Anchorage. I visited several outdoor sites -- statues, parks, gardens -- plus one museum. There was some actual sunshine for a short while so I drove out of town to some scenic spots where I was the day before.

I was stunned to learn how large Anchorage is. I assumed it had around 50,000 people. It is actually over 250,000 which puts it at #74 for cities *not metros). So, that meant Anchorage completed a third travel goal which I thought I had already completed -- driving in the largest U.S. cities. And, Anchorage is the #1 least densely populated town in the U.S.

Alaska has even better spectacular scenery than Colorado. The mountains, the large water ways (rivers and the ocean), trees, vistas, etc. The fall colors had already started here in mid-September, even before summer officially ends.

Apparently, because of the harsh winters in Alaska, their roads, especially bridges, are in bad shape. On the route between Anchorage and Seward were several one-lane-only construction projects as well as other projects that slowed traffic.

The sun did come out a bit -- for very short bursts -- my second day in Anchorage. That allowed me to go back to some of the more scenic points along the Seward Highway and get better photographs. However, even by late morning it was quite chilly out -- after walking through the botanical gardens, my ears and hands were quite cold!