I just flew in from Alaska

...and boy, are my arms----sorry, I'll stop. In all seriousness, the trip was wonderful, as were my generous, attentive hosts. I ate fantastic batter-fried halibut and drank the best India pale ale I've ever had at a local microbrewery (tragically, they don't ship). It had a clean, bright, hoppy taste, with a scent like homemade strawberry jam. Later I had an exemplary lager made with chamomile, which imparted a honeyed leather flavor. Simply amazing. Oh, and the scenery? Fabulous. In the posted photo, there's a log to the bottom right. That marks high tide, which rises 25+ feet above low tide. It's the bay with the second most extreme tides in the world, after the Bay of Fundy. The weather was great, in the mid-50s during the day and still above freezing at night. I was completely thrown by the fact that it got dark at midnight and light again at 4am. One night we started dinner festivities at my hosts' home at 5:30, and at 10:00 the sun was still shining slantwise through their windows. They told me about how, as Chicago natives, they'd had to get used to the fact that they will never again take a walk in the dark on a summer night (because when it's warm enough to walk outside in shorts, it never gets dark); how there's no point in lighting fireworks over the 4th of July (but the locals do it anyway); and how they miss fireflies (why waste the energy glowing when it's light around the clock?). It's truly a different universe up there. Now I find myself sitting here at my computer, gazing out the windows at the Illinois prairie, trying to pretend that the clouds on the horizon are mountains.