Anchorage Market & Festival

This morning we drove to the Anchorage Market & Festival in downtown Anchorage. It is an outdoor market held on Saturday & Sunday during the summer months and is popular with the local residents and tourists. There are even parking places marked for tour buses only.

We parked across the street from the Alaska Railroad Depot and paid $2 for 1 hour's parking at the ticket kiosk for the parking lot. The next choice for parking was $10 for 2-8 hours time.

We had to climb 2 sets of stairs to get up to the Market.

From Anchorage

One of our first sights was this bear named "Everwood"

From Anchorage

and we saw this little girl at a this "painting wall" where children could paint to their heart's content.

From Anchorage

There were over 300 booths selling food, handmade crafts, souvenirs hats, knives, clothing, pet supplies and just about anything else you can think of.

From Anchorage

We bought a funnel cake with cinnamon & powdered sugar($6.00) at one of the booths and found a picnic table where we could eat it. Actually the real reason we came to the market was to get some funnel cake!

On our way back down to the parking lot, the free trolley from The Ulu Factory which runs between downtown Anchorage and the Ulu Factory. What is an ulu? It is a knife (woman's knife) used by the Inuit to fillet fish, cut meat, and vegetables. It looks very similar to a pizza knife.

From Anchorage

We stopped by Wal-Mart Supercenter for a little shopping before going to lunch at Don Jose's Mexican Restaurant.

From Anchorage

We were the first customers today since it opens at noon on Saturday. We ordered one Grilled Burrito with Carne Asada Beef and added an order of fried rice and beans. We had the order split between us so we would have room enough for dessert afterwards. For dessert we got an order of their Fried Ice Cream topped with strawberries and chocolate sauce. This was the REAL Fried Ice Cream, not like some restaurants that have pre-made refrigerated fried ice cream that they try to pass off as the real thing.

From Anchorage

Who would have thought that we would find some of the best Mexican food we've ever eaten in Alaska?

Before heading back to the RV we stopped at the gas station on post to get gas in the Vue and paid $3.949 a gallon.