A great deal of my childhood and into my 20's was spent in the deep South; the south eastern states of America, where I said Y'all, and drank sweet tea with every deep-fried, gravy-smothered meal. Being an Army Brat, I can call many places home along the younger stretch of my early life. My mother was from Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, so I must get my love of Alaska from her blood. I felt at home here from the first time I laid eyes on it; looking out of the airplane window as we landed in Ketchikan, headed to Sitka, it was raining sideways. Gusty winds pushed up whitecaps in the channel where fishing boats were coming and going. Float planes were landing and taking off in the gale, among the boat traffic. It was grey, gloomy, chaotic, and exciting. The mountains rose straight out of the restless water, the clouds clung to the firs and spruces like pulled cotton, and I just....simply...loved it. It was everything fascinating that the Mississippi Delta wasn't, and it was not flat!
I moved to Sitka, Alaska in 1993 and lived there for nearly 20 water-logged years. It rains a lot in the Tongass Rainforest.
In 2006 I transplanted again to south-central Alaska, in the Mat-Su (Matanuska-Susitna) valley, just north of Anchorage. I have worked in offices, for cruise ship tours, on a fishing tender (glorified fish taxi), as a travel agent, and other odd jobs along the way. I mistakenly thought I'd be able to move away from Alaska once or twice, but it gets into your bones and you ache for it when you leave.
I have three distinctly different dogs that hike with me all over the Talkeetnas and the Chugach Range, or wherever the Dog Bus wanders when I get a day off. I borrow two more when I get the chance and hit the mountains to blaze trails with a whole dog platoon.
I hope you enjoy what my eyes find interesting.
Carey Dickinson joined Pixels.com Licensing on October 16th, 2018.
