it's me! i'm back! i didn't get eaten by a bear! but i did almost get carried off flying-monkeys-in-wizard-of-oz-style by mosquitos. it's all true - they are plague-like. but only in the woods. the second you're on asphalt and in "town" they disappear. my most apt description would be that craig and i looked like pig pen from the charlie brown comics - just replace the dust and dirt with mosquitos.
we didn't see any bears but we saw caribou, moose, bald eagles, one red fox, some loon, snowshoe hares, arctic ground squirrels (i think they're just regular squirrels but they give them a fancy name so tourists feel cooler saying they spotted them) and a whole lot of dall sheep (these are like mountain goats - they live on the rocky edges of mountains). of course, we also saw mountains and woods and miles and miles of uninterrupted beauty. truly the last frontier (slowly being encroached upon by technology as we had cellphone reception everywhere we went - albeit, roaming - and all those little log cabins and shacks in the bush have satellite tv).
the weirdest thing to get used to was the extended daylight hours. by the time we left there just was no darkness to be had. it was light outside for 24 hours. you'd wake up at 1:30am and be like "what the heck is going on?" because you'd feel exhausted but it seemed like it was morning. freaky. i'm not sure the long summer days are actually worth the 6 months of winter darkness.
we had a very happy kid to come home to. happy to see us and happy to have been treated like a little buddha by my parents and craig's parents. she keeps looking at me like "um, this is the time of day when nana and papa and i would have chocolate snack time" or "on thursdays at grandpa and grandma's we have hot dogs and ice cream for dinner". i bet.
i am planning on posting some alaska stories such as why i'm selling our house and buying an RV and why i always have to choose the bus tour with the jackass on it (sadly, even alaska has jackasses). plus, i'll reveal why i'm a glacier nerd, explain why just because you have a hot spring it doesn't mean you're a "resort" and maybe, just maybe, share with you a photo of moose poop. moose poop! what a scrapbook my alaska trip is shaping up to be!
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