Belated Alaska

Hey everyone, Joe here. Lexi wanted me to post a blog about my Alaska trip last week and I'm just now getting around to it. For those of you who didn't know, my squadron sent me to Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, AK for 5 days to participate in an airshow. On the morning we were supposed to leave, we had to wait around the squadron to see if we were still gonna go because there had been a C-17 plane crash the night before at Elmendorf. It was practicing for the airshow and crashed a mile from the runway.

We finally got the go ahead and 10 short hours later (with a fuel stop at Whidbey Island, WA) we were landing in Alaska. As you can tell by my clothes, it was a little cooler than the triple digit temperatures I was used to.

The airshow was Saturday and Sunday so all eight of us had Friday off so me and three other guys went to the town of Homer to go fishing.

Homer Marina

I wish I had gotten a picture of our boat captain. He was the prototypical grizzled boat captain...no teeth, foul mouth and no tolerance for beginners like us. However, that made it all the more fun to see how many different ways he could tell our group how bad we were at fishing.

I felt honored because he let me steer the boat every time he had to pee in a bucket, which seemed like once every 15 minutes.

As bad as we were at fishing, Captain Butch knew exactly where to find the fish and after only about an hour and a half, we had all caught our limit of fish.

We each caught two halibut...

and five sea bass.

The sea bass were easy to pull in but the halibut were tough even though they don't fight much. The biggest one we caught was about 30 lbs. After all the fish were cleaned, we each brought back about 20 lbs of meat each. Not bad considering halibut goes for about $16 a pound at the fish market.

I also had Saturday off so we decided to go on a hike near Anchorage called the Flat Top Peak Trail.

It only went up to 2500 feet but we started at 1000 feet so we had a 1500 foot elevation change in a little under two miles. It was very steep...

but we made it to the top. As you can see, it's not hard to reach the clouds in Alaska. It was overcast most of the time, but it didn't get dark till about midnight each night.

I was able to get a good view of Anchorage from the top of the peak.

On Sunday, I actually had to work at the airshow. I know, poor me, right? I just had to stand outside the jet and answer people's questions for 7 hours. Definitely worth it for all the fun I had the previous two days. As the airshow was ending, I realized I didn't have any pictures of me in front of the jet I've been flying on for the past two years. There are only two of them left and they're being retired on 17 September, so I figured I'd better get a memento while I still could.

Me and the mighty T-43

The final thrill of the trip involved taking an aerial sightseeing tour of Alaska's interior. We weren't in a hurry so we filed our flight plan to take us up to see Mount McKinley, the highest mountain in North America at 20,320 feet.

Just because