Anchorage History Museum

This is the new part of the Anchorage History Museum. It's a really awesome building with a lot of wood, marble and a glass fountain. (Sorry, I haven't figure out how to rotate the photos yet!)

Me with a brown bear. Mom saw one when we were on the train going to whittier. She said it was a small one.

This is a musk ox.

This robe is made from seal intestines with fur and human hair embroideried in the seams.

This is a large boiling pot where they boiled whale blubber. I saw a lot of oil lamps at the Native Alaskan Heritage Center and they used whale fat in their oil candles. They'd put it in a carved out volcanic rock (so it wouldn't crack), then light it. It would stay lit for about 3 hours but continue to heat the house for another 2 hours because the rock was still really hot. I forgot to take a picture of the oil lamps. The ones they used for big houses were about 1' x 2'.

This is the inside of an oil pipe that would be connected to the oil pipe line that goes through Alaska. They have things called pipe 'pigs' that look like a giant bullet that go through the pipes once a year to make sure they are clean and nothing is getting stuck on the sides. Also, the pipes sit above ground and when they are on or near earthquake fault lines, they are on these sliders that let them move up to 20' so they don't break.  If there is an earthquake and they move, the pipeline automatically shuts down until it can be inspected to make sure there is no damage.

We had lunch at the cafe in the museum. I'm not smiling because I'm really hungry and just want to eat.

Overall, I really like museums and this was a good one.
Tomorrow, we catch an 8AM train to go to Denali for 2 days. I can't wait. We'll be on the train for 8 hours, so I'll have journal time and lots of reading time. We went to a bookstore today to get Book 2 of Percy Jackson and the Olympians since we'll be finishing Book 1 tomorrow probably. I'll blog tomorrow night if we have internet at the Grand Lodge in Denali. 

Oh, and the weather has been perfect. It hasn't rained at all so far and it's not very cold. Most the tourists have left and Mom and Grani keep talking about how great it is that we have everything to ourselves. It's not as expensive as we thought either. There are free shuttles for almost anywhere you want to go, plus we are really close to downtown and we can just walk there. My favorite restaurant is Country Kitchen and it's right across the street.  See ya.