Alaska Jounral - 8/5 - Day of Travel

We began our trip on Friday, the 5th of August. Matt, Sain, Trevor and I left from Chicago while Allen left from Portland and Todd from Austin. We met up in the Anchorage Airport around 7pm. Coming from 3 different parts of the country ... especially with my travel luck ... was a bit risky, but worked out just fine. After collecting our baggage, we set out and got into our wonderful rental car, a Chevy Minivan. This thing was a piece of crap. It had "automatic" doors, which basically meant that they had a mind of their own -- opened when you wanted them to close and visa versa. Very annoying. I am perfectly capable of opening doors thank you very much.


Here is a picture of us before we headed out. From left to right, Ian, Todd, Trevor, Matt, Allen (aka Wang (from Caddyshack)), and Sain.




Anyway, we hopped into the car, swung by REI for some fuel and other important items (like Trevor's "Adventure Hat") and then grabbed some grub. We also found out (without asking) about the best strip club in Anchorage -- the Alaskan Bush Company. Apparently that is where all the fishermen go, and therefore is the classiest place around. Sorta scary eh?


After finishing up with food and REI, it was getting close to 9 (although the sun was still going strong), so we piled into the loaded van and set off North towards Denali. We made it about 140 miles before pulling off to the side of the road in the Troublesome Creek roadside camping (home of about 1 million aphids) where we crashed for the nite.