Out of the Wild

As I type this post, I'm sitting in a coffee shop in downtown Anchorage, buzzed on caffeine, waiting for my plane. I'm leaving Alaska after a little more than four months.

I know that my posts from Alaska have been scant-- filled with pictures but containing little substance. I've been busy, and when I wasn't busy, I was lazy. And I was at work quite a bit. And sometimes I was hungover. And there was a period where I didn't have my laptop. And another period where I didn't have my laptop charger. But enough excuses. On my last day here, let's talk about Alaska.

Alaska is a beautiful, beautiful, wild place. I went on several hikes that I will remember for ages. The landscape is vast and harsh, overwhelming and bewitching. I was almost attacked by a moose. I got to pet a particularly curious fox on a drunken night on the way home from the bar. I got within twenty feet of a black bear who was thankfully indifferent to me. I rafted on a glacier fed river. I bathed in a stream miles away from the nearest person. I saw the northern lights dance across the sky. I explored the state capital, inaccessible by road. I wandered the biggest city, Anchorage, and enjoyed a street fair and a baseball game (starting at midnight and utilizing no artificial light) in Fairbanks. I dosed acid and wandered through a music festival, convinced something big was happening. I had an incredible live music experience at the World Famous Denali Salmon Bake with the Stumblebum Brass Band. I cooked a grouse, and ate part of a moose and fresh caught Alaskan salmon. It was four months filled with amazing experiences.

I went there to work at a gift shop, and let's be honest, that was awful. It was the worst job I've ever had. The place was poorly ran, the employers were indifferent to the employees, and the customers were generally rude and haughty. I met several people thee as well-- some I enjoyed and others I delight in never having to see again. I made several assumptions about native Alaskans, seasonal workers, and Alaskan tourists that are negative and irrelevant to this post. I do not regret my time here.

What do I regret? I never made the 9 hour bus trip out to Wonder Lake to photograph Mount McKinley. I never camped overnight in Denali National Park. I never got a good view of a grizzly bear, and never saw a wolf or a bull moose sporting a giant set of antlers. I never made it north of the Arctic Circle. Alas-- there's always next year.

I do not think I will come back to Denali next year, but I think I will return to Alaska. The Kenai peninsula looks inviting. Maybe a short weekend trip up to Denali to do some of the things I missed? We'll see. Right now, though, it's back to New Orleans