What a blast! I'm going to try not to brag about the wonderful weather, fabulous bargains and generally fantastic trip that my hubby and I just had- but it's going to be tough!

We flew from Philly to Anchorage on the red-eye on Friday, 5/16. Landed really late at night, especially considering the time change. When we finally got to the Hilton Anchorage, it was after 1 AM Alaska time and about 5 AM East Coast time. We crashed! The Hilton has a lot of bad press on here and on some hotel rating websites for being old, outdated, and gross. Wrong! Our room was perfectly Hilton- updated decorations, clean, nicely furnished. We had a great view of the mountains. We were in the tower, maybe that's newer?

On Saturday, 5/16, we were up early to do a walking tour of Anchorage. It was a great little city, but it was COLD! It was probably in the mid-30's to low 40's in the morning. By the afternoon, I think it was probably in the low 50's. The Hilton is across the street from the Anchorage Market- which you have to do! It's got some great souvenirs for super cheap and yummy Alaskan food. We picked up some ulus from the craftsman himself- and got to chat with him and everything. We ended up seeing the same ulus, from the same artist, all over Alaska in the high end shops. We paid a fraction of the price! Since ulus are essentially knives, we were worried about bringing them on the boat and then through Canadian customs. No problem- the craftsman is shipping them directly to our home- and only charged us $9 to ship 2 ulus 2-day mail! Read more