And then there's the wildlife, Alaska is lousy with the damn wildlife. Eagles, bears, moose, caribou, whales, seals, sea lions, sea otters, wolves, foxes, lynxes, snowshoe hares and so much more. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a moose or a bald eagle or a whale. (Not that, you know, I'd ever actually swing a cat, alive or otherwise. I just meant that if you were to swing a purely hypothetical, imaginary cat, you couldn't do so without hitting some of Alaska's wildlife. Though why you'd want to swing a cat or even ponder swinging a purely hypothetical, imaginary cat, dead or otherwise, is beyond me, but I'm sure someone somewhere does, and I'm just saying I'm not one of those people, so there's no need to get all bent out of shape because you think I'm advocating swinging cats around by their tails, because I'm totally not doing that. At all. But I digress. A lot.) And all the wildlife is as delicious as it is beautiful! Well. Everything that I tried, at any rate. I don't know for sure about the eagles since I didn't get a chance to try one. I bet they're tasty batter-dipped and deep fried, but no one would tell me where I could go to sample the delicacy. I'm guessing it's one of those secret, locals-only things, and the Alaskans keep all the tasty bald eagles to themselves and don't share with tourists. Jerks.

All in all, I had a grand time in Alaska. I went whale watching, saw Mt. McKinley, ate my weight in salmon every day, took a riverboat cruise, went golfing at midnight, hiked my feet to shreds, saw a metric shit-ton of glaciers and icebergs, toured sled dog breeding and training facilities, met mushers who compete in the Iditarod every year, and did so much other crap I just don't have the time to list it all. The only thing I didn't get to do is poke a whale with a stick. Apparently, they frown on that sort of thing, which was hugely disappointing. I just assumed they let tourists do it, because why else would I come so far, right? I mean, what's the point of going to Alaska if you can't poke a few whales with a stick, right? But I did get to poke an iceberg with a stick, so that's something.

So, yeah, I would highly recommend a trip to Alaska to anyone thinking about it. Just make sure you bring as much insect repellant as you possibly can. Seriously. A 50 gallon drum would be best. Those mosquitos do not fuck around, people. They're as big as my head, and they're vicious and aggressive fuckers. The little bastards come at you from all angles at once in giant clouds, and very little deters them. They bit me through my shirt, through my sturdy nylon hoodie, and even through my canvas tennis shoes. Swat all you want, but nothing fazes them. They just keep coming at you, bold as you please. They're so big and vicious, I saw a bunch of them carry off a baby, just rip it right out of its mother's arms and fly away, laughing their tiny little maniacal mosquito laugh. I totally swear that happened. So just remember to bring your insect repellent, mkay?

Getting home from Alaska was not so hot, unfortunately. Not that anything particularly bad happened, but it was just the ugliest of Bataan death marches home. Our flight left at 9:30pm one day, and we didn't arrive in our own airport until 12:30pm the next freakin' day. Bleh. Sure, part of the time was sucked up by the 4 hour time difference between Alaska and Ohio, and part of it was sucked up by an ugly 3 hour layover in Minneapolis, but still. I think I slept for 24 hours straight once I was home, and it was several days before I felt less retarded and foggy-headed. It didn't help that I only averaged about 3 hours of sleep a night while on vacation. The midnight sun will fuck you up, my friends. Your body is all "Hey! It's light out! Surely it's only 5pm!" but then you look at the clock and realize it's 1:30am, and you try to go to sleep, but only a few short hours later your internal clock is like "Hey! It's 8am! Get up!" even though it's actually only 4am Alaska time, and after a couple of weeks of that shit, you're just not right in the head.

At any rate, so yeah. Alaska was awesome. I'll try to post some pictures at some point, though I probably will forget to do it because I have the attention span of an ADHD tweeker on a two week bender, and two seconds after I hit the "done!" button I'll probably see something shiny and get all distracted, and all thoughts of picture posting will fly right out of my head. But we'll see. I'll try really hard to remember, because I know you're all desperate to see them, because what's more exciting than someone else's vacation pictures, right? Right!

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