Girdwood Alaska, Truth (?) in Advertising

Girdwood Alaska is an odd little place.  It has a whopping big ski resort and real estate values are sky high.  But it also has a sort of hippie tradition.  When my son and I were there about 6 years ago we were - speaking of sky high - surprised to notice people openly smoking marijuana in the streets as they walked their huge, wolf like dogs.

This time we just swung in for a stop.  There was a large outdoor chess set with a black painted traffic cone filling in for a rook. There was a place that had gone out of business called Goodie's Whole Food Coop.  There was another place called Driftsale that had all kinds of new age crystals and herbs and such for sale.  Across the street from that we saw this:

Well, a rather high powered claim, perhaps the availability of beer put them over the top.  I had to stick my head in and look.  Dissapointment.  There were a couple of scraggly haired young guys doing laundry.  The ceiling was painted with stars and planets.  There was an attached hair salon, not open.  The claim of food was borderline true, there was a food truck run by "Cheech and Nong" that advertised Thai food.  The special of the day was tamales.  Beer?  None in sight.

Here is another Girdwood business.

Full points for honesty.  But as Tourist Traps go this was not on the level say of Treasure City.  In fact the merch was artistic and witty.  My wife got my fisheries biologist son this for his upcoming birthday.

Storm Troopers riding salmon.  Cool.