My 24-hour Trip to Alaska

I went to Alaska for literally 24 hours in July. Haha! It's a shame I couldn't stay longer and do some sight-seeing but it was still a beautiful trip. One of my friends from my sophomore year at BYU died quite tragically July 14th and so I flew up for her funeral which was on July 20th. I got to Alaska on Monday night at 12:30am so I guess Tuesday morning, and I flew out Tuesday night (Wednesday morning) at 1:30am. I was so dead tired when I got back!

This is a picture of the table of mementos at Brittni Giliam's funeral. What a lovely girl! She was so genuine in her love of life and the gospel. I'm sure she's taking Heaven by storm right now. :D

Here's a picture of the girls from the ward that made it. It was so, so good to see them again! Two were living in Alaska and the rest of us flew in. Why don't we plan get-togethers for more touristy occasions? That's what I want to know.

This is the Anchorage Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and me of course. The funeral was in the stake center that shares this parking lot so that was fun. The temple isn't open on Mondays or Tuesdays so I didn't get to go inside but still - I got to see it! I didn't think I'd make it to Alaska for years if ever, so just seeing the outside was novel.

Ok, so here's proof that all those crazy stories about the Alaskan sun are really true. As Mr. Bainum would say, "They have a different sun there." Haha! Oh good memories. So, this picture was taken at 9:30pm when we walked out of the movie theater. My watch still said 7:30pm and, based on the light, it could have been! Then my phone said 9:30 and I got quite confused for just about a while. :)

And this picture was taken at 10:30pm when we finished souvenir shopping. Jen (Brittni's cousin and also a friend from BYU) was so good to help us end a long, emotional day with some good bonding and touristy fun.

Here we are at some 50's type diner. We walked in at 10:45 ready for some dinner and keep in mind it's still light out, and when we walked in the lady was like, "We close in 15 minutes!" and I again was confused because I thought to myself, "Holy cow! Why are you closing so early! It's still light out, there's still traffic!" Then I remember, oh yeah, these poor high school students probably want to be home by midnight. Wierd! By the time I got home, I think I was mentally exhausted just from trying to figure out whether I should be hungry, or tired, or at what point in my biological routine was I supposed to be?

(Notice in this last picture that you can still see the grass outside. We watched it pour rain on the building across the street the whole time we ate and this picture was taken about 11:30pm. They really do have a different sun.)