There are Igloos in Alaska

It's pouring rain today. I love it. It's different rain then in Seattle and I forget that. When I see rain on the forecast here I think of a full day of drizzle and gray. Not the case here. It can be a nice day with a 20 minute rainstorm and that's it. When it rains it actually rains. Not just sprinkles. The sky opened up about 30 minutes ago and just poured. I love it. It's been raining quite a bit lately and the rivers are pretty swollen. Flooding is not far off. There has also been some thunder and lightning. I have missed the thunder so much. Growing up in Arizona we had amazing storms for several weeks each summer. I really miss that.

Summer has been flying by. I can't believe we are past Solstice now. That means the days are getting shorter. :-( We still won't see darkness until August or so, and only if you're up about 1 or 2 in the morning. The sun is officially setting but is only down for an hour and a half, not long enough to get dark. There's an interesting light during that time. Not really daylight but nowhere near darkness either.

We've been rocking and rolling up here this summer. We've had quite a few small earthquakes. They have been shallow and centered close to Esther, just outside of Fairbanks so we've really been feeling them. Apparently they didn't realize there was a fault line there. It's was pretty active for a couple of weeks but I don't think it has done anything for a while now.

I've managed to get out and go kayaking this summer. This is so the reason I live here!! I ended up getting a new kayak. The one I got last year is a great sea kayak, but it's not a river kayak. And that's what's here, rivers. I don't do any white-water kayaking, just calm rivers. My old kayak was long and thin and even though I stayed upright, I was never fully comfortable in it. My new kayak is much wider and a lot more stable. I love it. I was able to sell my old kayak for enough to pay for the new one and a new tent. We're going camping next weekend and I'll get to use my new tent for the first time. I'm so excited!!

We're going to go camping at Delta Clearwater. We went there last year for the 4th of July. I think I posted about it last year. We went back over Memorial Day and had another great time. We went on a 12 mile kayak trip and it was a lot of fun. The wind was against us for a bit and that made it not so fun but I still enjoyed it. The guys who were camping across from us had a great tent and I had tent envy. When they left to go fishing, Missy and I snuck over so I could see what kind of tent they had. When we got back from camping I ordered it! I'm terrible I know but I can't wait to use the tent!

Last weekend was Gay Pride in Anchorage. I ended up getting a great rate on a room (one of the few privileges of being in the industry) so I drove down for the weekend. It was pretty interesting. I've been to Pride in Seattle and Vancouver BC many times. Obviously this was nothing like that. Pride in Seattle and Vancouver is huge, thousands and thousands of people. The parades go on for hours. Block parties at all the bars. The cities are both so accepting of gays and lesbians. It's a party. Up here in AK it's much different. The acceptance is not the same here. The numbers of people are so much less. While it is a bit of a party, it is more about trying to gain acceptance and fight for tolerance.

I knew the parade was at 11am downtown. I never could find which street downtown. Not that downtown Anchorage is all that big. I ended up walking a zig zag pattern until I stumbled across the floats lining up. I found the route. So in Seattle, people hit Broadway at 7 or 8 am to stake out their place on the sidewalk. By the time the parade hits people are 6 or 7 deep. There are over 100k people there to watch the parade. In Anchorage, people were spread out over two blocks. Lots of sidewalk space. No one was set up in chairs or on blankets on the sidewalk as in Seattle.

The parade did start with the typical Dykes on Bikes. In Seattle this alone last 30 minutes with about 100 Dykes on their Bikes. In Anchorage, there were 5. Yep. Five. They took about two minutes. The entire parade was over in about 30 minutes. And this was with the hostess stopping each group along the way to introduce them. There were a RECORD 30 entries in the parade. They also had a record number of vendors at the park after, about 40. Wow, much different than other places. The parade in Seattle has at least 150 entries and lasts for hours, way too long. The party in the park is also to excess.

I'm sure people would laugh at the events in Anchorage. It's a joke compared to elsewhere. But it is real. More real than other places. A while back I was watching a show on Bravo that followed gay couples and their weddings. There were two guys who both made tons of money. They spared no expense for the wedding. It was huge and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. There were two lesbians who were barely able to afford to get married in their backyard. One of them made their wedding cake herself. There were maybe 30 people there. The guys wedding was so awful. It was impersonal and just fake. It didn't matter that they spent a fortune on it. The lesbian wedding was amazing. It was touching and real. It was about their love and making a commitment to one another in front of their friends. I kind of view the different Pride celebrations the same way. The one in Anchorage to me was real. It wasn't commercialized. It was about people fighting for who they are, fighting for acceptance. They aren't asking for special rights, just equal rights.

Anyway, I'll get off my soap box now. It just reinforces that I'm living where I should. When I have that much of a reaction, to feel the way that I do, it means I'm in the right place. Not that I've doubted my decision at all because I haven't. It was just a great reminder.

Ok, if I haven't lost you yet, only a few more things this post. The drive to Anchorage was great. I really enjoy driving across this amazing state. I didn't see any animals on my way down. Not a total surprise. There are a lot of animals up here but there's a lot of up here for the animals. Why are they going to come to this 15 ft strip of pavement? That said I did catch a glimpse of a black bear on my way back. As I was driving I saw about 10 cars pulled off the road. Up here that means one thing, animal sighting. And because there were so many cars, it can only mean bear. You don't get that kind of a reaction for a moose. By the time I stopped I just saw the back end of the bear as it went into the trees.

One thing I always see on the way too and from Anchorage is an Igloo. There are Igloos in Alaska. LOL A man built this one years ago to be a hotel. However, he neglected to build it to fire code. So it has never been used. It just sits there. I'm sure he'd sell it to you if you were interested.

I think that's it for now. I'll try not to take so long before I post again.