Off I Go!

       You can keep your "culture," I'll take my fresh air, clean water, scenic views and exciting adventures any day.  That's right, the big day is finally here!  After almost a year of waiting, including two marathons, graduation, the bar exam, multiple moves and a whole lot of other stuff in between, I'm moving to Juneau, Alaska.  My bags are packed (it's questionable whether they're under 50 lbs, but that will be tomorrow's headache) and I'm ready to go.

      For almost one year, I've been telling people that I'm moving to Juneau.  I either get one of two responses:  "AWESOME" or "Why?"  The initial response is then followed by a ton of questions. 

"Have you ever been there before?"  No.  "Are you going to live in an igloo?"  No.  Juneau has a moderate climate that stays roughly between 30 and 65 all year.  They are actually a semi-tropic rainforest so they get a lot of precipitation, but not a lot of freezing temps.  "What will you do in winter when it's dark all the time?"  Buy a flashlight!  Actually, it's not very different from winter in Chicago when I woke up in darkness and left work in darkness.  "How do you feel about bears?"  They're like big dogs, but you can't pet them...

And it goes on and on until the person wraps their head around the fact that I'm actually going to live in Alaska or they give up after hearing the disappointment that I have no plans of becoming besties with Sarah Palin.

After much research and investigation though, I do have some idea of what I'm getting myself into.

Things I expect: rain, bears, alcohol, lots of fish and seafood, scenic views, happy lights, whales and more rain

Things I do not expect (or at least not a lot of it): diversity, sunshine, roads out of town (ta ta national highway system), culture

With that in mind, I could not be more excited to begin my next adventure!  I will try to update frequently and add tons of pictures, but I am new to this whole blog thing so you'll have to bear with me while I figure out all this technology stuff.   Oh, and feel free to comment liberally...after all, it'd be nice to know that somebody is reading this blog.