On Land

We finally reached Anchorage at 2:30ish in the morning, Alaska time (which is 4 hours behind all you New Yorkers). We stayed at a lovely house loaned to us by a friend of Andy and Wendy's who recently moved to Anchorage from Egegik, the old bush village where A&W used to live. Mountains out the window, mountains to the right, mountains to the left, mountains everywhere.

Like a true tourist, I even took awful car pictures out the window as we drove along.

Mountains through the windshield!!!

Mountains by McDonald's!!! (Please note the McKinley Mac advertised.)

I realized something else from being in Alaska. Now that I'm taking more pictures of Mom than I ever have before, I'm noticing that she's a Poser. Yep, with a capital P. Just look at her! She was so busy posing in McDonald's that she didn't even know Dakota had photobombed her.

Anchorage is incredibly...normal. All the same stores, all the same houses, all the same cars. Noticeable exceptions: Mountains (obviously). Prices (higher for almost everything except the $0.50 McDonald's ice cream cones, as Dakota gleefully informed us). Sales tax (there isn't any). Moose (we saw one moseying through a parking lot). 

Our few days in Anchorage were a flurry of activity only a bush villager understands. Andy, Wendy, and Co. had a limited amount of time to buy, package, and mail all of the food and other supplies they'll need for about 5 months. Destination? Naknek, the new bush village they're moving to (that's where I'm writing this from). 

I've never experienced such sound and fury as that whirlwind preparation. 

Gee whiz.