Alaska: Part 1

This is going to be hard for me....I have WAY too many pictures that are share-worthy!

Let me just get started.....

June 9-16, 2012 was one of the greatest adventures we'd ever been on.  Nate and his family hosted a wonderful trip for a super fun group of friends.  Here are some highlights from the week.

We started off the trip by hanging with the President of A&M, Dr. Bowen Loftin!  Yep, that's him!  He was going to Anchorage to visit his daughter, and we just HAD to get a picture with him!  He also let us in on some secrets about the future of Kyle Field :)

Gig 'em: the Ags on our trip, Nate, Britt, Me, Dr. Loftin, Matt, Callie, Joe and Em (Thanks to Lucas for taking the pic, you were a good sport about our excitement)

Our first view of Alaska (at least I think it is Alaska).  This picture was only the beginning!  My favorite part of the trip was definitely seeing all the amazing scenery, sites I've never seen before!

Trying out our "eye bras" on the plane.  Remember, Alaska in the summer never really gets dark!  We had a long flight, so we tried to get some rest on the way up!

First sites on the ground!  Welcome to Anchorage!

We arrived in Anchorage at "night" even though it was this light outside (the picture above).  Matt noticed that there were "Christmas trees as normal trees!!"  We were clearly in shock by all the beauty around us! For dinner we picked up some amazing Moose's Tooth pizza (I recommend The Avalanche, delish), and headed to the Sperry's house in Eagle River (just north of Anchorage).  We were too excited to sleep, but even though Nate told us "people don't sleep in Alaska, the sun energizes you" we decided we should probably get some rest.

Saturday, we began by driving north, and saw sights like this:

WOW

and this!

We made our way toward the Denali highway.  On the way we drove through Wasilla, where Sarah Palin lives, that's pretty cool, huh?! No we didn't see her. We stopped at some amazing sites along the way!  I couldn't nap because I couldn't stop looking around!

Watch out for moose......crossing the road!

This was the hottest day we experience, "Alaska hot" as Chris said.  No big, we just stopped here for pizza, pics and a little football on the highway.  Britt reflected that "he didn't like Houston because you can't play football on the highway", Alaskan problems.....

After arriving at Brushkana, along the Denali Highway, we set up camp and attempted fly fishing.

Waders are necessary for fly fishing...these guys are legit.

We're ready for some fishing!

After an unsuccessful fishing trip, we went back to camp to start dinner......and dominate the 

FIRST bag of doritos :)

After dinner we had our first, of many many, Moose sitings!  Its hard to see, but its directly across the river from Joe, see it?!  So exciting!

Guess what, there was also snow there!  That's right, in one day we wore short sleeve shirts and then also played in the snow!  Crazy!  She isn't sure what to do with this! (PS this picture was taking about 10pm)

That's about it for the first full day!  We knew by this point we were going to have a great week!