Yes, in case anyone was getting worried, I am back from Alaska, but just haven't had the motivation to do much of anything, including posting. It was an amazing trip. If you have any love for the outdoors, for nature, for mountains or rivers or water, you would love Alaska. It's amazingly beautiful, but like nothing else I've ever seen. We got to see several glaciers, hike around one. We saw moose and bears (black, from a distance) and eagles. I met people from all over the world, up there on vacation or hoping to find lucrative summer work. I met people from Mexico, India, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, Britain, and all over the lower 48. I met one guy hitchhiking up to Fairbanks for a folk festival he was going to play in. I met a couple retired women from California trying to find mindless work for the summer. I met a really nice girl from Pennsylvania preparing to go on some intense, two-week backpacking trip. I met a couple from Unalaska (an island in the Aleutian chain, about 600 miles west of Anchorage) who worked there as longshoremen. They were heading back home on a four-day ferry ride at the end of a month-long vacation to mainland Alaska. Everyone seemed to be on some sort of adventure, and Alaska seems to be a place where such adventures can still happen.

Oh yes, and I did want to post a scathing review of Troy before leaving, but this one of Kate's just about says it all.

Short update from Kodiak, Alaska. It's beautiful up here. I haven't gotten to see much of Kodiak yet; it's been cloudy and rainy since we got here a few days ago. I'm told there are mountains, but I haven't seen any yet. Today it's been raining pretty steadily and it's in the 40's. Nothing dries up here, it's too humid, so my shoes have been a very cold shade of damp for the last several days, ever since hiking around the glacier in Seward. But don't get me wrong, it's great. People keep apologizing for the weather (as if they could do anything about it) but after New Mexico I'm loving the grey and cold. All the hills I can see are a rich green and you see water everywhere. Lots of gulls and an occasional bald eagle. A three masted sailing ship docked in one of the harbors a few days ago. It was one of those floating classrooms, where you spend a year at sea sailing around the world. The students learn how to sail the ship, set the sails, everything. We got to tour the ship and meet some of the students and the captain. I was told that that particular ship got around Cape Horn a few years ago, yard arms in the water the whole way with hurricane force winds. Very cool.

Well, despite much whining and chaos I'm off for Alaska today. If I can get to a computer I'll post updates from what I'm sure will be an amazing trip. See you in a few weeks. . .