Picnic with Palin

Every year, there is a Governor's Picnic held in Anchorage. This year, it just happened to occur on the last day that Sarah P. was to be our Governor. Steven and I went to the picnic and got to be served lunch by the famous (or infamous, depending on who you talk to) Mrs. Palin (new entry #93 on our List of Alaskan Things to Do). There was a very nice singing of the National Anthem and the Alaska Flag Song. There was also a song by "Hobo Jim" who is apparently pretty famous 'round these parts. You can see him at the Wild Berry Park. He sang about the different landscapes and people of Alaska. Hobo Jim is the Official State Balladeer for Alaska. He wrote a nice song called "I Am Alaska" and he sang it for us during the picnic. Click here for a video I found of him singing the song (down in Kenai though, not here in Anchorage).

After Hobo Jim sang, a girl sang the Alaska Flag Song. It is a song about nothing other than the Alaska Flag. Now for some trivia. Without looking or listening to the song first, make a guess as to how many stars are on the Alaskan Flag. Listen to the song to find out if you are right. The video with the school children is cuter than the video that I took!

Finally, we got to hear from Sarah Palin herself. I could not figure out how to turn the video, so I'm sorry that it's sideways. As you may be able to tell from this video, most of the audience was of the older generation...




After Sarah spoke, we heard from our new Governor, Sean Parnell. Then, we all got in line to eat. I got some great pictures of Sarah and Parnell.

WOW! Such an exciting day! After the picnic, Steven and I went to the Public Lands Information Office (#3) . They have a lot of information there about the parks here in Alaska. They have this especially cool "Bear Cam" that is a live feed from a river in Katmai National Forest. While we were there we saw about 5 or 6 bears in the river, fishing and playing. We also got to talk to the ranger who went down there a few years ago and saw the bears up close (well, not too close).

Keep reading! Our next post will be about our hiking and camping adventure down in Seward and also about our bear encounter...


Rebekah