Arriving in Alaska

Day 1 in Alaska!

I wanted to keep a journal of my trip this winter to Alaska, which I am doing, but I decided to share it online here as well. I will post photos I take on the trip on my social medias, as well as some on these blog posts.

I started my day today waking up in a hotel in the Chicago suburbs before arriving at O’Hare International Airport at 5:45 AM. I pre-checked in, no checked bags, so I was able to walk straight to security. Security took 10 minutes to get through, which was great for me. I sat at my gate for an hour before boarding my 7:30 flight to Seattle, WA. The flight was completely full. I had a smooth flight, with a little bit of turbulence during landing.

After landing, I had about an hour until boarding my next flight to Anchorage at 11:20. Luckily for me, the gate that I got off at was also the gate for my Anchorage flight. I grabbed a bowl of lo mein and honey garlic chicken for lunch during that hour layover. This flight wasn’t quite as busy as my first flight. I landed at 2:25 PM Anchorage time, which is 3 hours behind my normal Midwest time zone. It was -15 degrees out when I landed!

Nick Homburg (KSU photography professor) and William (Nick’s friend/Alaskan local) were waiting for me at the airport when I arrived. Nick printed out a paper with my name on it just for fun. We left the airport with about 45 minutes until the sun set at 4 PM, so they decided to give me a tour of Anchorage while we could still see. We drove around until the sun set, and right around 4:15, we decided to grab some food. William took us to Wee B’s, a burger joint with good cheese fries!

William was my tour guide and was telling me about Alaska history, animals, industry and fun facts about the area. I learned quite a few new fun facts about the landscapes and the industries in the area. Anchorage holds a lot of the shipping and freight operations for the US, as well as hosts multiple branches of the US military.

We talked about planning what we are doing for the 8 days we are here in anchorage, instead of traveling up to Talkeetna. Our plan was to shoot the northern lights in Talkeetna, but there will be too much cloud cover during our time here.

We headed back to the house so I could bring in my bags. We watched some TV, and then William’s parents (also Nick’s good friends) came to visit. We went through all of Nick's gear he brought with, and helped William set up his camera as well. Anna and Kristen, two classmates of mine, arrived from Denver and Seattle right around 8:45 PM. Nick and William went to pick them up. We are all very tired, even though it's 9 PM, our internal clocks are telling us it's midnight. We stayed up and talked for a little while before we all crashed and headed to bed.