Day 1

Landed in Anchorage at 11.30pm last night. The sun was still up in the sky, giving it a fiery orange haze. I was greeted my Bob Mitchell '54 at the airport, and had a wonderful drive through Anchorage as the sun set at 12am. I learned a few things about the area; it is only dark from 12am to 3am, Grizzly bears and Black bears must be dealt with differently, you have to stop the car and let moose cross at certain times, and the mountain tops are snowy all year round.

Today, my day started green and bright at 7.30am. I strolled through an open native crafts market, took a breezy walk by the Pacific Ocean, visited a private plane parking lot by Lake Bernard, had a Salmon quesadilla, stopped by a bike rental, and made sure I knew my way up and down West 3rd Avenue. My host, Mead Treadwell '78, the current Lt. Governor of Alaska, has a beautiful home right on the Pacific, with a running trail parallel, and a grassy backyard onlooking the coast. In a sunny luster, the only sign of "night"-time was the streets emptying at around 10pm.

Anchorage is known to be scenic, but there is a serenity about a lot of the lakes, coasts, and mountain range view, that engages more than sight. Calm, but at the same time full of life- like the feeling of drifting off to sleep amid midsummer daylight.