"The Great One"

It's been a very long time since my last post. I've accumulated so many stories - important, minor, dramatic, mundane, happy, sad, and downright repetitive. Every once in awhile I'll sit down to write and share pieces of my Alaskan Great Perhaps with anyone who might read this only to find that what I have to say isn't the big adventures you might want or I expect of myself. My stories often involve events that are still in progress that maybe shouldn't be shared quite yet. However, I can tell you about my three-day mini holiday this past Saturday-Monday.

With three days scheduled off from work, this was supposed to be our big train adventure to Talkeetna. Two nights in a hotel with three of my really close friends, horseback riding, zip lining, and any other shenanigans we could find, but the universe rarely cooperates with mortal plans. Not one of us ended up going and only one was ready that morning. Whoops. My first reaction when I finally woke up was to make it up to my first and one of my closest friends here (she was the most excited for the trip) so we went to breakfast for lunch at Totem (the cafe across the street from our housing). We both walked away with food babies and plans for the rest of the day. She had scheduled a flight tour for herself later in the afternoon, and with a few adjustments, I was going too. A flight tour involves airplanes and, depending on the company, flying around Denali aka Mt. McKinley. Sometimes it's just flying around the area which would be cool as well, but ours was pure magic.

Words truly seem inadequate when trying to describe what I saw, and felt, and experienced. Watching as the rivers, ponds, lakes, hills, and mountains begin to disappear beneath patchy clouds. Feeling like you're exploring a different world as the clouds solidify into a floor of white, leaving all thoughts of land behind. You soar past bulbous rain clouds the same white as the others, but rising in a column, stories higher. The skies stay like this for awhile longer, yet you are never bored with the seemingly endless sea of clouds. In the distance a shape forms. A rather large rock at first glance. It's impressive, certainly, but as you near and the clouds dissipate some, you can appreciate what a behemoth Denali is. 21-something thousand feet high, the "Great One" easily dwarves the 14'ers surrounding him. Circling and dipping between the different sights, your guide points out the glaciers, the tallest wall on earth the "Haversham Wall", four of the major peaks, and yet throughout the descriptions your eyes constantly return to Denali. Spines peak around it sporadically above the white floor like an ice dragon's back. As the pilot glides around the peak one last time, passenger's cameras snap away, desperately trying to capture a sight they'll hold most vividly in their hearts.

 My intentions were to finish the rest of the weekend's stories, but I seem to have run out of words. I'll leave you with a few pictures from Monday and bid you adieu =)