It’s 12:30AM Anchorage time. I have a wake-up call in 3.5 hours for a 6AM flight to a 10AM Starbucks Tall Bold in Seattle, and dinner in Chicago and a snooze en route to Ottawa to (hopefully) a nice hug and kiss from sweet Mme Siouxie. 15 hours of travel.
I’m beat. I would call this trip: Planes, Trains and Automobiles if it didn’t also include boats, glaciers, kayaks, crampons, mine shafts and whale pods. Today I spent 7 hours on a 20-passenger yacht on Prince William Sound en route from Valdez to Whittier writing a Porchlight funding proposal. I’d write a bit, then dash to the bow to watch Dall porpoise dance alongside the boat, close enough that their blow holes splashed me when they surfaced. Then there were the humpbacks, puffins, 1000-year-old sky blue glacier bergs. Ironically, I powered through the proposal writing on all cylinders. Writing about compact fluorescent bulbs was Never easier. Nor more in context.
Once in Whittier we caught a 3 hour train to Anchorage. A long travel day. I will miss the other writers. More on that later.
I just have to say that I’ve never felt more at home when away than while here in Alaska. I’m coming back. With the Mme, and les boys.
(Photo: That’s me jumping for joy near the gaping hole in the glacier. Click on any photo to see a larger version.)
