Anchorage, AK

[RUSSELL5000]

Pretty sure I recall some Alaska members here on the forum. Need to make arrangements to stay for the last week of April. Will fly in and out. Looking for reasonably priced but nice, safe hotel and dining out recommendations.

My son participates in academic decathlon; his team just won the Pennsylvania state competition. Now they go to the national competition in Anchorage.

Academic decathlon is for high school students. There is a team of nine students. Each person on the team is scored in a number of events scored by judges: interview (like a job interview), speech (a four minute prepared speech followed by a two minute impromptu speech on a topic given by the judges), and essay (based on topic given by the judges). Then are subject tests: life science, physical science, math, economics, social science, art, music, and literature. There is a central theme each year; this year is India; next year is World War II. Whoever scores highest wins. The kids and the coaches have worked very hard; proud of them.

Thanks for any ideas.

 

[AKGriz]

The nice thing about Anchorage is it's only an hour's flight from Alaska.~~~

I live in Fairbanks, but occasionally fly/drive to Anchorage. I've done well using hotels dot com and similar sites to find reasonably priced and safe lodging. You can probably find something close to where your son's competition is being held.

Los Anchorage/North Seattle (ha ha) has all the usual fast food joints and restaurants. If you want to try a local burger joint, try Arctic Roadrunner on Old Seward Highway. If you like Japanese food, they have a Benihanas which is coincidentally located next to one of the reasonably priced major hotel chains.

Most of the snow should be gone by the time you arrive (except mountains), so you should be able to drive around freely and explore. If you have specific questions, PM me and I'll do my best to answer. I do have a son who lives in Anchorage, so we can get answers to just about any question you might have.

 

[RUSSELL5000]

Much appreciated. I am working on flights now. I expect you'll hear from me as we firm things up.

 

[RUSSELL5000]

This is a late follow-up on this, but I wanted to relay how things went.

First, the students had an outing day which consisted of a day trip to the port city of Seward, AK next to Kenai Fjords National Park. The students went on a tour of the local aquarium and got to help care for new sea otter pups. We did not get go to that as the tour was at capacity with the students. However, there was space for us with the students on a boat tour of the bay. We saw sea otters, Dall porpoise, beluga whale, humpback whale, sea lion, and a pod of killer whales. We watched the pod of killer whales for twenty minutes (the maximum time a particular boat is allowed to be in the vicinity). In particular, the pod had a newborn; you could tell it was newborn because it had an orange color rather than the black and white of the older members (as well as it was small in comparison). We saw elk and numerous bald eagles on the drive back and forth. We also saw where a glacier is coming down to the sea (nothing fell off while we were there).

We spent the time when we were not observing the competition hiking in Chugach State Park which borders Anchorage. This is a “park” of a half million acres. We saw bighorn sheep on the cliff sides. Beautiful country. We really enjoyed Anchorage. From everyone we talked to, the weather is not significantly different than we have here in northwestern Pennsylvania and the land is amazing.

The students spent most of their time studying and at the competition. There were 68 teams present. There were teams not only from the United States, but Canada, Virgin Islands, United Kingdom, and People’s Republic of China. Students compete for individual awards by topic and team overall awards in divisions according to school size. There are also overall individual and team awards. Our team won second place in their division. Members of our team won quite a few individual awards in their division. My son had a first place finish in economics and a third place finish in speech. One team member scored eighth highest overall and another team member scored second place for most improved overall from the state competition to the national competition. Very proud of the students – they worked hard and represented the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania admirably.

A school from California won the overall competition.

Finally, Alaska is a recreation-legal marijuana state. We saw the truck in the attached picture in a parking lot between a Taco Bell and McDonalds on the night we got there. Folks would walk up to the service window on the side of the truck. We took the picture the next morning. Certainly don't see that here in northwest Pennsylvania.