It's Wednesday evening at the Delaney Park Strip, and from traffic-packed A Street to peaceful P Street, Anchorage's oldest park is bustling.
The evening begins quietly enough. A hard rain came late in the afternoon, but by 5:45 it's no more than a drizzle, although the swollen, gray clouds obscuring the Chugach Mountains to the east are the definition of ominous.
A handful of people gather under an awning on Ninth Avenue between H and I streets. It's the second-to-last week for Yoga in the Park, a free program offered on Wednesday by The Alaska Club.
It looks like the threat of rain will keep people away. But here come two women on bicycles, rolled-up mats strapped to their backs. Then comes a mother pushing a stroller. Then a man and a woman, mats tucked under their arms.
People keep coming, one or two or three at a time, from every direction. By 6 p.m. instructor Heidi Flynn is guiding 125 or more through baby cobras, retreating warriors and mountain poses.
"Success is showing up," Flynn tells them.
If that's true, Wednesdays at the Park Strip are teeming with success.
From east to west, it's filled with fun -- softball, kickball, tennis, sand volleyball, Quidditch, yoga, running, ultimate Frisbee and more.
Treasured for its grassy expanses, the Park Strip -- one block wide and 13 blocks long -- serves as the southern border to downtown Anchorage. It's hard to imagine playing in a place with more varied or stunning backdrops:
Mountains to the east, endless daylight and a glimpse of Cook Inlet to the west, the city skyline to the north and a street lined with pretty homes and yards -- plus Star the Reindeer and her free library -- to the south.
"We enjoy coming here," says Chase Aunoa, who is here to play sand volleyball with family and friends on the courts at 10th and E.
"You can just stand here and look at people enjoying the park from here to there," he says as he gazes to the west, where the park goes on for several blocks.
10th and A
Humpy's is a serious recreational softball team, the kind that shows up with a big barbeque grill hitched to a truck that sits behind a set of bleachers and fills the air with tempting aromas.
The team's opponent is the Gumbo House Deciders, a D league team that moved up from the E League this summer and sometimes regrets their ambition.
"Can you say we have at least one victory?" asks Kelly Lessens.
These are Anchor Town Sports teams. The league is smaller than the Anchorage Sports Association league and its games are played at the Park Strip instead of the fancy Cartee Fields, where there are dugouts, scoreboards and a concession stand.
The Park Strip suits Stacy Reece of the Gumbo House just fine.
"The atmosphere is so much more fun at the Park Strip," she says. "It's a more friendly competition. There's always people watching. People wander by all the time."
9th and C
Nothing brings out your inner third-grader like kickball.
If memories invoked by the game include bullies, rest assured. At the Wednesday night kickball league at the Park Strip, steel-toed shoes are forbidden and so are throws that hit a baserunner above the shoulders.
A game between Flat on the Spot and the Curvy Pitches is as low-key as it gets. Flat on the Spot has a go-pro head camera, and each player wears it when he or she is up to bat.
The teams are among 18 in the league, which is run by the Fairview Rec Center.
"I didn't know such a thing existed," says Hunter Joy of the Curvy Pitches.
Anna Johnson of Flat on the Spot says the game follows the same rules as softball, "except you throw the ball at people." Just no headshots.
9th and D
Sharon Parks came from Rhode Island to visit her sister, Kathy Wallace, and tonight they're getting a $15 tennis lesson from Annie Passarello of the U.S. Tennis Association.
Parks just turned 60 and is new to the game. She jumps for joy every time she makes contact with the ball, whether it goes over the net or not.
Lessons run Monday through Thursday night for 10 weeks during the summer, but unless a tournament or lesson is happening, the Park Strip's eight tennis courts and hitting wall are available all day and cost nothing to use.
"You can just come down here and find somebody to play with all the time," Wallace says.
10th and D Street
Between the tennis courts and Pete's Gym is an area with two sand volleyball courts, a concrete ping pong table and several horseshoe pits.
Chase Aunoa is part of what he calls the Warriors family, a group of friends and relatives who play indoor volleyball during the winter. In the summer they play at the Park Strip.
"It's usually available, and it's free," Aunoa says. "We pick one court and we play all night till 10, until nobody can barely stand."
10th and G
"Is your ear part of your head?"
It's the quote of the night, and it comes from a young woman wearing a cape and holding a broomstick between her legs.
She's playing Quidditch, which evolved from a fictional game in the Harry Potter series to a real-life game played Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. at the Park Strip.
Defenders – called beaters – are allowed to throw balls – called bludgers – in order to impede the other team's progress. No headshots are allowed, hence the question.
If there's a drawback to playing at the Park Strip, it's that balls thrown at the south-end goals often roll onto 10th Avenue. But there are more advantages than disadvantages to the spot.
"It's centrally located, it's free and it's open," says Meneka Thiru of Alaska Quidditch.
"And it's a lot of visibility. We do get people yelling things like 'Gryffindor!' or 'Hufflepuff!' ''
9th and H
Makayla Strahle sits on a towel as she and friend Katelyn Mills wait for Flynn to begin the evening's workout. Strahle is new to yoga and doesn't have a mat, but that doesn't matter at the Park Strip.
"No one judges," Mills said.
This is the third year for Yoga in the Park, and on sunny evenings it may draw 400 people.
Strahle and Mills like the idea of doing yoga outdoors, in the midst of the city.
"It's peaceful," says Mills.
"Sometimes people honk," says Strahle.
10th and N
"Ten pushups!" comes the order from the leader of about 35 people sitting in a circle several blocks away from the yoga group.
These folks are more about cardio than karma. Jerry Ross, a top runner and coach, calls it "the underground training group," and it meets at a variety of west Anchorage locations each Wednesday. Tonight the runners are at the Park Strip.
"The most elite runners in the state are here – Anna Dalton, Jeff Young," says member Bruce Davison, "but it's also for the mid-packers and back-packers."
Davison, 67, counts himself as one of the latter, although he posted a personal best last month at Mount Marathon.
Tonight, the group runs several laps around the west end of the Park Strip, forming a fast, fit conga line.
"Sometimes with the Frisbee players, their Frisbees are going all over the place," Davison said. "(But) we respect each other's space out here."
10th and P
Two dozen players are here for the weekly Ultimate Frisbee pickup games. They divide into four teams and begin two side-by-side games.
No matching T-shirts, no shirts vs. skins, but somehow everyone knows who to pass to and who to guard.
"We just know everybody," explains one of the players. "For new people it's really hard."
New people are always welcomed. David Canales moved here from Texas and didn't know anybody his first night at the Park Strip.
"People just show up," he said of the pickup games, which begin at 6 p.m. each Wednesday. "If they show up, we'll be here."
About a block to the east is another, less intense, group of players.
"We're old-school ultimate," says a player in mid-game. "We're not very competitive."
No worries. At the Park Strip, there's room for everybody.