This blog is supposed to be about my move to and experiences in Alaska.  Not to take away from anything I wrote up to this point, but let’s face it .. it was all Kansas based.  But at 7:15pm AST (or 10:15pm CST), my flight touched down at Ted Stevens Airport and I finally arrived in Anchorage.

As you can believe, I arrived quite tired, but maybe not for the obvious reasons.  Last night, I drank myself into my hotel bed while getting to spend time with Juan & Liz Torres for a while – followed by a few hours with the newest King of Stupid (because he took the crown with my departure) Jeremy Phillips.  I chatted a bit with Kristen Neitzel as well on chat, but that was more when I was lucky I could see straight to type.  A good night sleep followed in a real bed (not a what I have making do with in the house the last couple weeks), and it was getting to be go time.

I kicked out some e-mails, got one last geocache, returned the rental, and checked in.  It was the usual quick flight to DFW, but then the brutal flight went.  Don’t get me wrong, it was a an easy non-stop from DFW to ANC … but it was 7 hours long in a 757.  I knew I was in trouble when the laptop battery went 4 hours in, but I was sweating when my iPhone was on fumes when wheels touched down.

Got my new rental car, found my apartment, went to Fred Meyer (a Kroger chain, so my Dillions Gas Card works :P) to stock the fridge, then came back for a late dinner of store bought sushi and white flesh peach. The apartment is a small, comfortable, clean 1 bedroom, and will do for a couple months.  I got in the door and found the windows open, the cool wet air feeling good in here – and it hit me that I hadn’t opened the windows at all this year in Kansas … seems we went from heater weather to AC weather directly.

It’s 10PM here and still daylight, but getting darker.  Clouds in the sky from rain make it hard to tell for sure where the sun is.  Something to get used to I guess.  Going to stay up for a bit longer, then take a melatonin to try to sleep past 3am.

I know this sounds all clinical and analytical,  but my tiredness and numbness locked me into engineer mode somewhat … and I have to remind myself that this isn’t another buisness trip or vacation … this is for good.

There were moments though today that made me very aware of the situation.  Two in particular.  One was the view as I left the airport.  I snapped a pic from the taxi and posted this on Facebook:

… And God said, “Welcome to Alaska, here’s something pretty for you to look at.”

The Taxi from the Airport

The other was when I got on the plane in Wichita.  The flight attendant, being chatty, asked me “Are you leaving home? Or heading home?”  I thought about the question and the answer was simple: “Yes”

Ladies and Gentleman … I am home.