Ahhhh-Laska!

Common questions asked of me about Alaska

Why are you going there in November?! Wedding photographers don't live life like the rest of the world. We work on week ends when everyone else is off and we have to travel when we don't have a wedding. Generally that is in the months that there are not as many weddings. Case in point, I shot 9 weddings in August and 1 in November. So we get while the gettin' is good, so to speak.

Where did you go? Well this is an interesting question. I went...to the Matanuska Valley, more specifically Palmer and Wasilla. Yes, that Wasilla.

Did you see Sarah Palin? No. And strangely enough, this trip was planned before she got the nod for potential VP. So I learned very quickly to say that I was going to be staying "Just outside Anchorage" because it was the number one question people asked me. I cannot even imagine how annoying it was to live there during that time. And for the record, I saw her house which is a non-descript brown two story. I'm told she is often spotted at the local Wal Mart.

Was it cold? The temperature was just about the same as it was here. The difference was mostly that the sun did not fully rise until 10AM and it was dark around 4PM, just like here. And since I was on vacation I slept until 9AM pretty much every day, so who cares!

Did you see Moose? I did, on the first day there. I did not have my camera ready and I was too enthralled to try and dig it out. He was cute, and my friend Missy said he was "just a little guy" but he looked ginormous to me.

What did you like best? Well, besides having time to spend with my awesome friend and her family I loved how rugged it was there. I loved seeing mountains all the time. They have a very different mindset there, much less materialistic than it is here. They lament when a new "box store" such as Target moves in because it usurps mom and pop shops, yet getting anything shipped there is either very expensive or cannot even be shipped. It's like a very small town in a VERY big state. I will tell you honestly that if not for the mountains Anchorage looked a lot like Racine to me and that is the largest city in Alaska.

Funny things I learned Cars are called "Rigs". And if you have ever made fun of people who drive SUV's you understand that in this place, they actually make sense. The roads have grooves in them from tire chains. There is literally one road in and out of Anchorage, and it's fourlanes and if it snows or avalances then you don't go anywhere. When I was driving to Girdwood with Missy I said "Wow, this is pretty remote" and she said "Not really. There is a road here. Anything with a road is not really considered remote"

Going outside This is a phrase used if you go to the "lower 48". Such as the statement that was uttered to Missy by a waitress who knew her "You look like you have a bit of color. Did you go outside?"

Reindeer Sausage
Tastes like Kielbasa