Alaska so far

April 29, 2008
Although we have heard that there are lots of wildlife we have only seen geese. They park out in the parking lot behind our apartment just on the other side of the fence. The weather is really cold some days and warm others. On Friday it snowed and we got two feet (officially it was 25 inches. Some kind of record.) and the snow was almost completely gone by Sunday. The snow is so wet here because it comes right off the ocean that it melts really fast. We went to go see the temple on Sunday afternoon (our second attempt to see the temple, but that’s another story). It is smaller than the average Utah Stake Center or any average stake center for that matter. There is a Stake center being rebuilt (it burnt down last year) right next to the temple, they share a parking lot and you can see the difference in size. Nothing really stuck out in my mind about the temple. There was nothing real decorative about it. There is only about a 1/2 acre of green (grass and plants) area. Most of it is parking lot. We haven't gone to do a session yet because you have to call to make an appointment and Peter works all the time (noon-10pm Mon-Fri and 9am-10pm Saturday) and I don't think that very many people are LDS here so they need to make sure there are people working. I have also noticed an unusual amount of bars and liquor stores here. There is one at least every block. In Utah at least they didn't advertise it so much. Also EVERYONE smokes. In fact the number one cause for preventable death in Alaska is smoking. We live in a gated community, and although it is gated you could crawl under the fence behind our apartment. All the separates us and everyone else is a wood slat fence. Real safe huh. No, the crime is really low where we are located, so there is no need to worry. The mountains are pretty but really small and only on the east side of Anchorage that you can see. They are nothing like Utah where you are completely surrounded by huge mountains.