...are covered in ink stains from a wayward pen.
It's 1:34am Alaska time. Even here, I am a night owl, even though the night here lasts for two hours. The sun stays up until about 2:30am and rises again 2 hours later.
I have learned some things whilst on this trip.
1. It's hard to take a nap in the back of a moving 31 foot RV while driving through mountains.
2. All doctor's offices look the same. They are all in on it together. They must meet, once a year or so, and discuss exactly how to make it as much the same as possible. The only exceptions are the magazines, which must be indigenous to the location but still a few months out of date. I had to go to the Valdez, Alaska Hospital/Medical Center because of ear issues that rendered me dizzy. Zack and I sat in the examining room for something close to an hour waiting on the doctor. I got so bored at one point that I rifled through the cabinets, found the latex gloves, blew one up, turned it into a chicken using a sharpie I had in my purse and then wrote on its side, "This is what happens when you leave people alone in an examining room for an hour." I then stuck my latex chicken creation in a drawer. The third one down on the right side, if you were curious.
3. I am starting to learn a new language. It's called "Photog". I am actually starting to grasp all of the terminology that gets thrown around.
4. Texas Hold 'Em. I discovered that I am good at this game. I just learned how to play and it is WAY too much fun. Give me a cigar, a beer and some cards and I am ridiculously happy.
5. I have discovered that I am also quite good at seeing cobwebs. I see them everywhere. And not in a "Oh, poor Meg, she's seeing things..." sort of a way. Nope. I just happen to notice things like cobwebs. Like now for instance. There's one on the fan above my head.
6. I don't hang out with anyone any more these days. It's not that I don't want to, but that I am too busy. And so, therefore, I don't want to initiate anything with people that I genuinely love and want to be with because I know that everything will be one sided and they will have to succumb to my schedule and that is really awful and so I choose to never call anyone. I seriously realised this about myself on the flight TO Alaska. I think it was somewhere over Canada, right around the time Phoenix's drool was running down my left arm from where he had fallen asleep on my shoulder and the old man behind me was fussing at the flight attendant for charging him too much for his sandwich. Somewhere in there.
7. I tan better than I originally thought I did. My arms are startlingly brown compared to my stomach, which is startlingly pale. I am chocolate and vanilla.
I am tired of typing out numbers at this point. Phoenix said something so funny on the drive to Valdez, which, may I say, is stunning in its beauty. I kept trying to take pictures and then would frown in disappointment at the result. Pictures will never do those mountains justice. I saw glaciers and how their path had formed the valleys we were driving through, mammoth waterfalls tumbling down the sides, white topped peaks so cold and so high they have their own weather system. All this beauty and it took my breath away and I called out to Phoenix,
"Phoenix! Look at this! Are you seeing these views? They're beautiful!"
"Yeah Mom, I'm playing my DS but I can see them in my periphery."
I should go to bed.