Mavrick, mavrick, mavrick!

I'm sitting in Anchorage International Airport as I write this. We are taking the red eye out of town so instead of waiting for the end of the day to blog, like I usually do, I'm writing now. Today will not end for me for a long, long time. Jason's dad has to work tonight so he gave us the keys to his car so we could go exploring while he got a little extra sleep. We went around downtown Anchorage for a bit, getting pictures of things I didn't quite catch on our first buzz through, then we headed out of town. A few people had asked me before the trip if we were going to Wasilla, home of governor and former VP candidate Sarah Palin. I had said no because I had no idea where it was, but since we got the car and Bob's blessing to 'Get lost so I can sleep' (ah, such a charmer. Hee hee, he was totally kidding...ish) we decided to go. FYI, it's about 40 minutes outside Anchorage. I had Jason take this picture of me winking and pointing. We got a few looks from the locals, so that was fun. I swear, everyone up here has tourist radar. We were just walking through a park and everyone stopped what they were doing to look at us, it was weird! Everyone is extremely friendly, but it's uncanny how they can tell you're not from around these parts. Maybe there's a 'lower 48' tell that I'm not picking up on. Either way, it's fun to talk about where we're from and stuff, and hear the person you're talking to brag about which states they've been to. It's a sobering thought: It's exactly as hard for them to picture coming to the rest of the states as it is for you to picture coming to Alaska. We came back to the house, had dinner, and Jason's dad dropped us off at the airport a tad early so he could get to work on time. I am already planning our next trip out here.