Ahhhhhlaska

Back in the Lost Angels area from the most glorious of holidays...

Alaska is more spectacular than I ever imagined! Or researched! Or watched on TV. We watch a ton of those NatGeo/Travel CHannel/Animal PLanet shows and they have great footage, but nothing compares to being there, breathing in the sweet-smelling, clean air, hearing the silence of being the only humans around or of the sinuous rivers flowing over boulders or the wind rustling through the brilliantly hued trees.

Holy shit.

Alaska rocks.

There is so much to write and so little time...plus, I seriously need a thesaurus when describing the place. All I come up with is beautiful, incredible, stunning, gorgeous, unbelieveable and so on. So forgive me if I sound like a tool using the same verbiage. It's really hard to describe it- the pictures we took (and some are kick-ass) don't even do it sweet justice. All I can say is you MUST get up there as soon as you can (and of course, during the right time of year).

The right time of year is EXACTLY when we went- end of August thru mid-September- the Autumn colors are out and you wouldn't believe the mountainsides - covered in reds (cherry to maroon), yellows (soft to almost neon), oranges (fiery) and of course, all the greens (bluish-green, kelly, and everywhere in between). The crowds are much less overwhelming, the prices have decreased (in some sense- everything is SPENDY up there, but in the "shoulder" season, some lodging costs go down), the bugs aren't as annoying, the weather is perfect, and you get enough darkness at night to see millions of stars. Stars behind stars behind stars. The big dipper is always within reach- you can actually see and feel the curvature of the earth up there- it's kind of a strange feeling.

So we started our adventure in Anchorage, where most people start. We rented a 25 ft. RV from the best place up there _ Great Alaskan Holidays. There is really *no* need to even look into renting from any other company up there. The folks there are ON it... and it's the only company that you don't have to pay for shit like dishes, linens, towels, a coffeemaker, and a couple of lawn chairs. Plus, you don't have to dump it before you return it, nor do you have to clean the interior...which makes it so much easier. And they have the newest fleet. They rock, and we will return and we will rent from them again.

The RV experience was way cooler than I thought- both Mr. McGhee and I thought we might get tired of it quickly, but neither of us did- we were turtles, carrying our house on our backs...or his back rather. He drove the whole time, which was great for me. Up in AK, you can pretty much pull your RV over anywhere and camp, unless there are specific instructions against it. You can always go to campgrounds, but we found that it was pretty sweet to just find a secluded spot and park for the night. On occasion, it seemed a bit sketchy to do so, but it was always fine. The sketchiest place we parked was about 300 yards from a runway of a tiny ass airport in Healy, 15 miles from Denali National Park (DNP). I was all quivery b/c I thought for sure an airplane would swoop down and miss the runway. haha... i'm such a wuss about shit sometimes. I also figured that right as we'd finished smoking a joint and downing a few vikes that someone would knock on our door and tell us to get the fuck out.

What happened instead was the most magnificent night ever- after the best day (more on that later), that night we saw more stars that we'd ever seen before- dazzling- and we saw the Northern Lights! Now, they weren't as spectacular as you may have seen on TV (or if you're lucky, in person)- they weren't undulating in the sky- but there was a cool white glowing stripe across the sky that slowly shifted. When that stopped, just as we were falling asleep, we saw a bright white glowing orb above the closest mountain. What the hell is that?? After a few minutes of watching, we saw the Moon rise. WOW! I've never seen that, and it was so ...cool? a giant sliver of the moon perched above a dark, tree covered mountain, with a billion stars around. While it was just a sliver, we could actually see the whole outlined moon. And through the binocs- it was extra neat-o. (haha, i'm trying to bring that stupid phrase back, altho i have no idea why). Mesmerizing.

Anyway, I just jumped way ahead. We started in Anchorage and the first night we stayed in a campground near there at Eagle River Nature Preserve. Immediately after we parked the RV and got out to explore, we saw a brilliant rainbow- don't believe I've seen one with such definition between the colors. It was Labor Day weekend, so the cg was pretty full - we ended up in the "overflow" part, which was a gravel parking lot. We discovered that night that we weren't into the public campgrounds- people suck! Some fucking jackass arrived really late (2 am?) and started CHOPPING WOOD for literally hours. We were beyond pissed. Ohh it's getting me angry thinking about it. lame...

I didn't get very far in this post. Gotta go, as my lunch break is over... more later!