My Trip to Alaska

I showed up clean in Anchorage, makeupped, tank topped and smelling of deoderant. I returned to NY exactly the opposite. It was good.

Alaska is no candy ass place. A city girl like me has to adjust to the hippie thing, the wet cold windy weather thing, the moose and bear and lynx thing, the mosquitos the size of bats thing and the swarms of biting flies and smell o' repellent thing, the rutted dirt road thing, the hunting and fishing thing, and the breathtaking view thing. I can't say what took the most effort to embrace but I think it was the idea that if I decided to go for a run in the morning I needed to take bear spray with me. As you might have guessed I did not run, but we did do some fantastic backcountry hiking and saw lots of bear shit.

We saw lots of wildlife but no bears. Speaking of wildlife - the hippies all wear mismatched oversized clothes and boots and hats and jackets all the time and have long hair and beards (so do the girls) and don't bathe BECAUSE IT'S PRACTICAL! Oh get off it. That's like saying we wear high heels in the city BECAUSE IT'S PRACTICAL. It's ALL about fashion, even in the bush - trust me. One day it was 70 degrees and the girls still wore their hats. But maybe that's because they all have lice.

I ate huckleberries and watermelon berries in the woods, unwashed, without packaging. I ate freshly picked oysters. I drank good local beers. We biked and hiked and drove about and toured and had a great time. All this despite the runs from the oysters and berries and beer, the fall off my bike and the resulting bad cut on my leg, and having my shoulder bag stolen from the car by bad people who broke the window and damaged the vehicle to get at it (estimated damage: $2400). There was nothing in the bag of real value if you are in Alaska: tweezers (which I quickly replaced), a few ditties including the perfume I had come to rely on to repel smells (mine and others)(also quickly replaced), tissues (which can be VERY useful in the bush, at least for some of us), gum (which can help cover the stink of beer and fish) and a comb (apparently not needed in Alaska). So I guess I got lucky, except for the guilt trip. What idiot city girl leaves a shoulder bag in a car, in plain sight???

I'm home trying to get my brother's dog's hair off everything. The weather is warm. I'm back at the Y where I belong. It is all good.