Alaska - Trav–HELL Day – The Birthday Trip

Trav-hell – yep, I made that word up. 

But, if you fly much, you know what I mean. 

Even if everything goes smoothly (which our day did), travel days are always a hassle.

For my birthday trip this year Mark asked me if I wanted to go to Alaska.  (We took a trip to Alaska five years ago for his birthday.)  I immediately said yes. 

He had found a “Wilderness Rail Adventure” trip that sounded like fun so off we went.

Our travel day was long.  Our Delta flight out of San Antonio left on time at 8:10 am CDT. 

San Antonio Airport.

Not many people flying at 8 am Saturday morning.

We arrived in Salt Lake City, Utah at 10:00 am MDT.  

Great Salt Lake.

We had a 5 hour layover and left for Seattle on time at 3:20 pm PDT.

Our plane landed in Seattle at 4:30 pm.  An hour later we were back in the air headed for Anchorage.  (Arrived at 8:00 pm Alaska time zone).

After a 15 hour day we boarded a bus and headed to the Anchorage Hilton.

View out our room (8th floor).

Anchorage Hilton

We arrived at the hotel a little after 9:00 pm. Our tour group had met earlier in the evening for orientation and we missed that, but we had a nice note from our tour leader Annie welcoming us to Alaska and giving us information for the next morning. 

With our long travel day and the four-hour time difference between Texas and Alaska we thought that we'd drop right off to sleep.  But at this latitude it stays fully light until midnight, and then only gets dusky for about 3 hours, and we had a so-so night of rest. Oh well, we'll sleep when we get tired!

Next time: Denali "The Tall One"