Back from Alaska

Speculation ran wild amongst those close to the situation. Was it above or below 500? 550 maybe? As it turns out the answer topped out at 854. The question?
How many pictures did we take in Alaska?

Probably the best of the 'wildlife' bunch is shown above. That wolf is in Denali National Park, and had the courtesy to mosey alongside our shuttle bus for a good 30 minutes. No grizzlie gave us the same show, but I'm told wolves are far less common.

Allow me to present today's post as the summary of our trip, but rest assured that detailed descriptions of the events are soon to follow. To the summary:

NABS: The whole impetus for the trip to Alaska was the North American Benthological Society's annual meeting (the 54th in fact). The meeting was fantastic, but I'll describe it (and my thoughts on scientific conferences) in detail elsewhere. Let's just say that it took all of that week for me to get adjusted to 24 hrs of daylight and a 4 hour time change. Adjusting made me depressed and somewhat miserable. I compensated by drinking a lot of wine. This, pre-wife, week was punctuated by some of the women we were staying with inadvertantly taking my rain jacket, which just happened to contain my wallet. They left at 9 in the morning and I didn't see them again until after midnight. I had no idea where the wallet actually was, so this represented a period of high stress.

Seward: A misty coastal village. Good food, good views (when the skies clear), mediocre to crappy accomadations, and I touched a glacier. We took a boat cruise into the bay here to look at stuff: Glaciers, whales, otters, puffins, etc.

Anchorage: Very touristy, and the only part of alaska that feels like part of the lower 48. As in, strip malls, etc.

Denali/Healy: Amazingly beautiful. The phrase "Just another scene of unimaginable beauty and splendor" was a constant one in our vocabulary. For someone who has lived almost entirely in flat states with lot's of farming, Alaska is astoundingly vertical. On the other hand, the inability to see long distances caused us quite a bit of bear-related angst (details to follow).

We ended up spending an absurd amount of money in Alaska. We'll be eating cheap and ignoring monetary vices for awhile. All in all though, the trip was amazing. Hopefully I'll be able to get over the jet lag from the overnight return trip soon.

Oh, and Go Mavs!