A Week in Anchorage – Arriving for the 100th Anniversary

As some of you know from past posts, I still have a home in Anchorage from my years there.  We visit it as often as we can.  Since my wife doesn’t work, this means she gets the whole summer up here, but for me it means only a week away from work to go have a real vacation.

For this trip, I took United – rather than Alaska – in order to use a $125 voucher I had and the 5% discount through Veterans Advantage.  UA was already slightly cheaper than AS, but this drove my cost down from $663 to $537.  Creative routing got me 9,341 EQM for going DCA-IAH-SFO-ANC-IAH-BWI.  This creativeness also increased my chances for an upgrade since flying between non-hub cities means less other elite flyers to compete with.  This proved a good strategy since I was upgraded two of three legs on the way there.  Flying into ANC is always a treat with interesting terrain to view and one of the best mid-sized airports in the nation.  And what other airport greats you with a moose!

Arriving home at 2300 hrs., here is a picture of my house.  Yes, it is that light at 2300.  In fact, the sun would not set for another 30 minutes!

Anchorage is having their 100th anniversary as a city this year.  Not a ton of special stuff taking place, but it was still cool to celebrate.  Not too many cities of 700,000 are only 100 years old.  They have a pretty good site with a few great photos of what it was like for the early pioneers.  Here is a link to check out.