Alaska turns 50!

I had to thaw out to start shivering.
I may be going into convulsions right now.
It is currently 10:32 AM. I just got back from an hour walk in -9 degrees.
The sun still appears to be rising. And it is somewhat light out. When my goosebumps are gone, and my hair thaws (it turns out that when my breath hits my hair, it freezes) I may have to go enjoy it.
When I left at 9:15 AM the sun was rising on my left and a big beautiful full moon was setting on my right. It just ducked below the horizon.
Luckily drivers are pedestrian friendly. I think they feel sorry for the stupid people that decide to walk.
There are also several bikers. Being that ice genearlly scares me, and I have much less blanace when wheels are involved, I don't think I'll be jumping on a bicycle any time soon.
I'm staying with Ray, who believes that decorating should involve as many dead things as possible. Especially if they're large dead things. There are skull and antler sets in the living room, a bear hide covering the love seat and another on the deep chest freezer and a moose antler on top of that. He and his roommate have adopted two plants since I visited last November.
On the bright side, they killed a moose recently and still have deer left over in the freezer. This means I'll get as much dead animal as I can stand (deer meat does make an excellent addition to pasta sauce). In summer, I anticipate some bear. Yum! This may mean that I'll gain the 8 pounds that I lost somewhere between Mississippi and Alaska.
My goal right now is to learn the bus system. Somehow, walking everywhere when it's the coldest winter people can remember doesn't seem very pleasant right now, although Ray has offered the use of his car...
Walking in the dark is nice though. The world is very private and very quiet. The shadows on the mountains are absolutely beautiful.
We went to a ska concert last night. Which meant I got to dance. And meet a ridiculous number of people. I think I remember 5 names out of 30. That's a good start.
On that note, Alaska has been a state for 50 years. I'll be in the middle of all kinds of celebrations!
Walking around Alaska does feel a lot like walking around Japan. Not quite sure why yet, but I've got time to figure that out.
So. I'm in Alaska. Weird.