It’s good to know that even if it doesn’t have quite the status that it used to, in some ways, VINL is still definitely the center of Anchorage. I spent years hanging out at this diner in midtown Anchorage, and met quite a few friends there over the years. So, when tooling around Anchorage on a slow Sunday night, what to do but stop by?
It didn’t take me long to run into someone I knew there. In fact, I was still walking up to the door when I spotted Aaron coming in the other door — doubly amusing, since he and I have both been living in Seattle for quite a while now, but we ran into each other at VINL last Christmas season, too. We grabbed table 1, were joined in a bit by a friend of Aarons (who’s name I, unfortunately, can’t remember right now, but she knew me, and I’d met her from time to time over the years), and the three of us talked and caught up for a couple hours.
Later on, Erica showed up with her friend Eric, and when it got to be time to head off, I followed the two of them back to her apartment, and spent another few hours catching up with old friends. Was a lot of fun to see her and her son Deven again, as I’d not been able to catch up with her the last couple times I’d been through town.
Today, I think I’m about ready to head off and brave the Anchorage malls in some last-minute Christmas shopping. What better time to go shopping than Dec. 23rd, right?