
I made it to Anchorage but the journey there was quite interesting. Our flight out of Phoenix was delayed an hour due to our pilots arriving late but while we were waiting on the tarmac, I saw this interesting sight. After a quick text of this image to a pilot friend of mine, I found out that when a captain retires, he receives this welcoming reception of the water tunnel from local firefighters as he finishes his last flight. What a special and emotional honor. I was glad our flight was delayed so I could witness this touching event. We then got underway and as we left Phoenix in the darkness, I spotted an orange glow off to the east. For those of us who live in the valley, we are very away of the huge wildfire burning up the Superstition Mountains. As of June 20, it was over 50,000 acres and the valley was filled with a haze. From the sky, it was heartbreaking to see the actual fire from so far away. You can see it in my iPhone image as a orange dot on the left side of the image.

The 5.5 hour flight after that was uneventful and as we approached Anchorage, I took some quick phone shots at midnight of the spectacular sunrise/sunset. I’m not sure which one to call it but it was beautiful in between the clouds and over the snow-covered mountains below.

Once we descended through the clouds, I got a better view of Anchorage and a rain storm off to the left of the image. It was beautiful and the island in the foreground had windmills dotting the land.

The next day was a day to explore Anchorage, meet the group and prepare for the next 5 days in Lake Clark. Lake Spenage behind the hotel was beautiful and served as a runway for all the sea planes!

Since I haven’t been around sea planes, I was fascinated and walked around part of the lake to get some shots of the planes docked along the edges of the lake.

There were even little shacks and houses next to the lake where the planes were docked. They looked really cozy and all of them had beautiful flowering plants!

I watched several of the sea planes taking off and landing. Please click on the video below to see one of them take off.
We are heading to Lake Clark soon to go find some grizzlies! Stay tuned!