Friday, July 20, 2012: Our trip begins!

After a long day of flying, including a semi-ridiculous layover in Dallas-Fort Worth, Kurt and I arrived in Anchorage at around 8 p.m. We dropped off our backpacks at the hotel and immediately set out to explore a little bit. Anchorage is the biggest city in Alaska, with its population of 300,000 about roughly half of the entire state. We ate dinner (halibut tacos) and got some beers at Humpy’s Ale House in the downtown area.

After dinner, we walked around a little bit more, already thrown off by the daylight sky still bright well past 10 p.m. Considering it was later than 1 a.m. Chicago time, I was ready to head back to the hotel to go to bed. Our good friends and travel buddies, Bob and Amy, arrived from Houston about an hour or so later, so we called it a night to get some rest for the next big day.