Alaska

For Memorial Day weekend, K and I decided to use the long break to knock a trip off of my West Coast bucket list - Alaska. I simply cannot overstate how memorable of a weekend it was. I will, for the remainder of my days, recommend a trip to the pristine AK to anyone who will heed my advice. 

With only 48 hours from our arrival to our departure, there was no daylight to lose. Fortunately, daylight is far from limited in an Anchorage May. Upon landing at 11:40 PM, we drove a short distance to the hotel, walked across the street to Wendy's (where you can get a frosty in a waffle cone), and called it a night - all in remarkable sunlight. 

Saturday, following a trip to the grocery store for weekend essentials (oranges, hummus, habanero bbq almonds, and Haribo gummies for K), we trekked to Eklutna Lake, located in Chugach National Forest. About 5 steps into our hike, we were met with an imposing sign: "You are entering bear country". The sign proceeded with nearly 30 bullet points about how to avoid surprising a bear (why didn’t I bring my cowbell?), what to do should you see a bear, and of course, what to do if the bear becomes vicious. All of this was casually followed by "But don't have bearanoia, and enjoy your hike!" As if enjoying the hike was to be easy when I was anticipating a ruthless grizzly at each turn. Fortunately the bearanoia did subside, and we were able to enjoy the beautiful climb (despite our summit being blocked by snow up to my hips!).

Following our hike, we actually were able to see some ruthless grizzlies in a way that was much more settling – through an electric fence. At the Alaska Wilderness Conservation Center, we walked the 1.5 mile loop through various animal habitats, including black bears, moose, bison, bald eagles, and the largest owl I have ever seen. Unlike a zoo, we were able to see a much more natural representation of these enormous animals – think 50+ bison leaping through the preserve! After a quick tour of the gift shop, we were ready for an Alaska dinner.

We had prepared ourselves for our Alaska experience by watching the Alaska episode of Man Vs. Food. After the show, we knew that no trip would be complete without dining at Humpy’s. Though we did not order the same mammoth meal as Adam Richman (which consisted of 7 salmon cakes, a 14 inch reindeer sausage, 3 lbs of king crab, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, and a giant wild berry crisp with ice cream), our king crab and blackened salmon was epic. One thing we quickly learned is that food in Alaska does not come cheap – otherwise we may have taken another 4 orders of crab to go! It was that good.

Completely exhausted, we returned home for some highly anticipated shuteye. We waited for the sun to set – watched some NBA playoffs, followed by the second half of The Dark Knight – and then we continued to wait, and wait. Finally we settled for the faux darkness imposed by the heavy drapes and called it a night. The following morning, we attended church and visited the Anchorage temple. While navigating to the temple, we missed it completely on the first go around, looped around, and finally found it located in the corner of the stake center parking lot- about half the size of an LDS church building! With no grounds to tour and certainly no Visitor’s Center, we headed off to our next adventure – the coastal trail. We stopped off at the bike rental shop, strapped on our helmets, and headed off down a 21-mile display of coastline, forest, and hundreds of colorful seaplanes. After the 21 miles, my legs began to protest further activity, and we returned to city for dinner.

Our trip was coming to a close far too soon, and we spent the ride to the airport planning AK Round 2: Denali National Park, salmon fishing, and of course, more crab. Our 1 AM flight took us back to sunny California, where we will anxiously await a sequel trip.