Here’s how we have frugal fun in Anchorage: a Dixieland band, reindeer hot dogs, Ice Road Truckers (and one of their trucks), door prizes and really cheap ramen.
It was the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the newest Alaska Walgreens. The drugstore chain has had stores in Anchorage and Wasilla since 2009, but the company decided to make a big deal out of this opening.
That’s because this location is the second 24-hour pharmacy in the state of Alaska; the other one is the Walgreens out in Wasilla. Good news for parents whose kids come down with ear infections in the middle of the night, or those of us who forget to renew our prescriptions until after 9 p.m.
So the band played, the ribbon was cut, the truckers signed autographs and we all lined up for free grub. If you’ve never had a reindeer hot dog, you don’t know what you’re missing. These were from Indian Valley Meats, they were nicely charred and they were so big they overflowed the hot-dog rolls. (Nothing says “Alaskan” like a big weenie.)
Best of all, they were free. So were the Alaska Chips and some cute little cans of soda. Inside the store we sampled free salmon jerky and my great-nephews snared some free fun-size candy bars. No one in my group won a door prize, but we all scored free “Walk With Walgreens” kits (walking journal, pedometer and bag).
We are easily amused
This was almost as exciting as the grand opening of Anchorage’s first Kmart, back in the 1990s. People lined up hours before the store opened for business. I am not making this up. It was a very big deal, immortalized later in a show at the Fly By Night Club, where Mr. Whitekeys sang about staging “a Neiman-Marcus show in a Kmart town.”
The event made me miss Longs Drugs, which used to operate just a couple of blocks away from the newest Walgreens. The drugstore had a great selection of sporting goods along with the usual sundries. You could buy a dipnet, a shotgun and a box of cough drops in the same trip. The store closed some time in the 1990s, and the chain has been bought up by CVS.
Anchorage has changed tremendously since I left almost 10 years ago. Walgreens is the most recent in a long line of chain stores and restaurants to open here. That’s both good and bad. I like being able to get free after rebate toiletries, and I like Qdoba burritos. But every time a TGIFriday’s or Chili’s opens, local restaurants have to struggle. Small companies don’t have the deep pockets of big chains. Progress doesn’t always feel progressive.
Walgreens doesn’t sell guns or fishing gear, but there was a decent price on ramen. Good thing, since the Kmart closed years ago, too.
I’ll never forget when Gap opened. The line was halfway around the second level of the mall. It was so packed that people were waiting over 30 minutes just to get into a dressing room. (I was there, if you will recall, against my will. The 9 year old kid I was watching wanted to go check it out.)
Only in Alaska….