1. The Altitude. Even though I was born, raised, and lived more than half my life at over 5280 feet, it's amazing how much it affected me in the first hours after getting off the plane. Maybe part of it was the extreme fatigue of the last few days; the lack of sleep on the overnight flight; and/or being in the last trimester of my pregnancy. It felt like I'd climbed a mountain and I was ready to collapse any minute.
2. The Rocky Mountains. Driving away from the airport (heading west), I was struck by how small the mountains looked. I'm sure I would come to bodily harm if some certain people heard such a statement, but after you've lived in such close proximity to the mountains in Alaska, you'd think the Rockies were small too. Even close up (from what I remember), I don't think the Flat Irons, for example, could seem so spectacularly tall. The mountains in and around Anc just loom there as if out of nowhere, and on a clear day, it takes your breath away to be able to see Mt McKinley (from Anc).
3. The Brightness. I'd literally forgotten how bright the sun can be at Wyoming/Colorado's altitude: it hurts your eyes. These last few days without my sunglasses, I get a kind of sun-blindness -- and headaches. And it has a marked affect on the colors in the atmosphere. Where the trees, and grass, and mud in Anc seemed darker in color, the colors here seem kind of washed out and drab. But that might also be the dryness of the atmosphere. If there were to be a good rain here, it might liven up the colors a bit -- but only temporarily. That much I remember.
4. The Wind. I'd (quite happily) forgotten what it feels like to *always* have the wind in your face -- and whipping through your hair and clothes. A bright sunny day seems just a bit colder for its presence. No kidding, I think it's been blowing nonstop since we arrived, although we did get a slight repreive this morning for a couple of hours, just long enough to attend mass. Anyway I don't relish the thought of the wind ripping across Kansas during our first winter.
5. Allergies. Leaving Alaska, we literally flew into spring coming back down to the Lower 48. And though we can finally break out our warm weather clothes and I can show off my pedicure from a couple of weeks ago, I hate my allergies.
6. Coffee Kiosks. It's funny, when I first moved to Alaska, I was shocked by how many drive-up coffee kiosks there are around town. But after living there for a few months, you know exactly why there's such a proliferation of them, mostly local brands. Even Drew had a (walk-up) coffee kiosk in his office building, a Kaladi Bros., which had a $1.50 daily special latte, a price you can't get just anywhere in town. And now that we're back in the Lower 48, I'm shocked to see how few drive-up coffee kiosks there are (not that I was ever a big coffee drinker myself).
7. "Smaller" Sporting Goods. On Saturday we had a drive over to Sidney, Nebraska to meet Drew's sisters and two nephews for lunch. Afterwards we had a stroll around the Cabela's there. I first encountered a Cabela's when Drew and I were dating. Word has it that the three brothers that started the place grew up in the same town as Drew's mother. Anyway they have these kind of wacky mounted animal displays in every store, and usually a large fish tank of sport fish. We noted the moose, which interestingly come in three different sizes, depending on where its from. The smallest live in the Yellowstone area; the next largest are located mostly in Canada; and the largest are from, you guessed it, Alaska and the Yukon. They also had a couple of the mounted bears and a polar bear of all things. Unfortunately no living specimen of the Alaskan salmon or halibut in the fish tank. But walking around the store really gave us an idea of how true the saying is: everything's bigger in Alaska. (Yes, I think we're Alaskan snobs now.)
