Day 1 - Saturday, August 20 - Alaska << Index

Anticipated: Play Anchorage Golf Club 12 Noon

Travel:   Itinerary: Depart Anchorage for Salt Lake City at 12:55AM Sunday arriving at Salt Lake City at 7:27AM (Red-Eye flight). casino

Web: Anchorage Golf Course - Anchorage, AK

Actual: (Photos and text)

Click on the photos below to enlarge Jim & Pat just prior to leaving home. Jim & Pat hitting their 1st tee shot of the 61 day journey. Jim will probably hit about 5500 shots and Pat will probably hit about 6600 shots during the odyssey. Jim & Pat with Jack Ives Jim & Pat with T. W. Patch---Tournament Director at Anchorage Golf Course. Jim & Pat with Lee Clune---Tournament Director at Anchorage Golf Course..

Finally the day has arrived for us to begin our CanAmAthon. Day one, our first day of golf was today, Saturday, but our trip actually began at 1:30 p.m. on Thursday (8/18/2005) when we left our Hudsonville home driving 350 miles to Covington, KY. Covington is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. We spent the night in a motel and the next morning (at 5:00 a.m.) we left to catch the 7 A.m. flight from Cincinnati (CVG) to Salt Lake City and then the noon flight to Anchorage. Since we fly “standby” we felt quite fortunate to make both flights without being “bumped”. Our son, Ken is a Delta Airlines pilot which allows us free flying privileges (as long as we don’t mind being standby). After a very long day, we were in bed at our Anchorage motel at 7:30 and slept for about 12 hours. Our son Stu has a longtime friend, Jack Ives, who is in the US Air Force and is stationed in Anchorage. Jack was kind enough to chauffeur us around for the one day we were in Anchorage, and we were happy to have him join us for our first round of golf in our 61-day odyssey at Anchorage Golf Club. We arrived at the course and were able to tee off at our scheduled time (11:56AM.) The people at the golf course were very nice and made us feel right at home. The golf course is quite beautiful and a great layout. Most fairways were bordered by pine, spruce, aspen and birch trees. The course sits on a gradual rise to the mountains, and from the club-house there is a panoramic view of Anchorage off to the west. On a clear day, Mt. McKinley can be seen off to the distance to the north. We were pleased that the weather was perfect---the temperature was in the low seventies, there was very little breeze, and we were bathed in sunshine for most of the 4 hours that we were on the course. After the round, Jack drove us to the airport where we patiently waited for our 1:00AM Sunday flight to Salt Lake City (redeye). The flight was full, so we had to wait for the 2:40 AM flight and we arrived in Salt Lake City at 9 in the morning. We would again like to thank the staff at Anchorage Golf Club for their kind hospitality. Jim and Pat Healey