AK – 4×4 Obstacle Course Competition and A Day in Anchorage

MATI, Museum of Alaska Transportation and Industry (where we are working and living) has special events take place on their property throughout the summer on weekends. At first, I wasn’t sure about hanging around for the 4×4 competition, but once I saw the first vehicle get stuck in the mud, I was hooked…LOL The design on some of them was ingenious. One in particular had a small cab with a bed a bit shorter that swiveled at least 90* to accommodate the course requirements. WOW! It was soooo cool! Only 2 of maybe 15 vehicles made it through and up out of the mud pit without towing assistance. One car almost rolled trying to drive over multi-sized tires imbedded in the dirt. The rock hill climbs were insane. The craziest challenge was driving almost nose-down into a hole deeper than many vehicles were long and drive back out! It was very impressive!

The swivel truck

This guy was greata

Joy, Joe, Nevermore and Kenai

This one almost rolled

Look at that mud!!!

This one did an almost ‘grill stand’

After the competition, Carl and I went to the Anchorage Solstice Fair with friends, Joe and Joy. We saw the historic 4th Ave Theater, an art deco building built during a pause in WWII. It had a gold leaf mural of Mt. McKinley in the lobby and a rendition of the Big Dipper on the ceiling. It stayed open until the 1980’s. It is currently boarded up and it may be torn down for redevelopment much to the dismay of the residents. It is an Anchorage icon and our friends remember many fun times in that theater as they were growing up.
We took a walk to the Cook Inlet and saw ‘mudflats’ for the first time. Visually, they are intriguing, deceiving…in reality, they can be deadly. Their properties resemble those of quicksand. Fisherman have perished trying to walk out on the mudflats.