We did our P-day stuff first thing today (dusting, vacuuming, cleaning bathroom/kitchen, shopping) so that we could take off this afternoon and do a little exploring.  Apartments are wonderful.  You can clean them in less than an hour.  We drove north through town and up Alaska Highway 1 to Wasilla.  We stopped along the way and took a couple of photos for you, but it was a very grey/white day with snow flurries and low clouds so we didn't get much.

We were just a little ways up the road when Sister Taylor saw some blue domes through the trees.  We found this Russian Orthodox Cathedral just a short way off the highway.  There are lots of churches of every kind here in the Anchorage area - Baptist, Lutheran, First Christian, Greek & Russian Orthodox and various others, including the National Center for the Bahai Faith which is located almost next door to our temple.  The population here is very diverse.  There are 17 languages spoken in our mission, including Spanish, Hmong, Russian, Tongan, Samoan, Tagalog, several different Native American dialects and we even have Elders who speak Navajo.  We have been told that there are over 130 languages represented in the Anchorage School District.           

The Anchorage Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Not a very big temple and not a very good picture.  We'll post another one in the spring.

We also found Mirror Lake on our travels.  Obviously a year-round recreation area.  

These people were on Mirror Lake.  They take their fishing seriously around here!

Don Noel told us about the Moose Kill signs on Highway 1.
Now I guess we'll have to believe him.
The sign says 181 killed this year.

One of the rivers(?) we crossed.
You can see a little water on the right, the rest is frozen over.

...and this is the coolest thing ever.
This is a moose gate, a one-way gate that allows the moose to get off the freeway but not get back on.
And look at those scrawny things the Alaskans call trees.  They look like scrawny Washington State shrubs.