Photos From Alaska

After surviving the flight up, and discovering the quickest way to wake up an exhausted mind is a very fast takeoff, I spent a week in Alaska– including, as the locals proclaimed, a rare 3 days of wonderful, sunny weather. The mountains were magnificant, especially when the sun reflected off the snow, and I got to see some glaciers and seals and plenty of tourists.

While there, we managed to get to the theater to see Prince Caspian and Indiana Jones– both of which were awesome films. They’re actually more like required viewing, just like everybody just has to see the latest Star Wars or Lord Of The Rings — it’s just one of those requirements set up by Them. Except the upcoming Star Wars Clone Wars, which appears as if it will be abysmal, and will require some intense saving to renew my faith in that franchise after that last set of abominations (shudder).

Anyhow, I also managed to watch Batman Begins, Conspiracy Theory, Man Of The House, Night At The Museum, I Spy, Live Free Or Die Hard, and perhaps more that have slipped my mind. I was there for my friend’s graduation, and it is a tradition to stuff ourselves with movie watching every hour of the possible evening until we drop into an exhausted stupor. This worked wonderfully until the night before I had to fly out, when we didn’t finish Conspiracy Theory until 1:30 AM. Not bad, until you remember I had to be up at 5AM the next day to fly out. That’s where those little airplane pillows come in handy.

One of the primary goals of this trip besides my friend’s graduation was for me to get some much-needed input on elements in the sequel that needed some smoothing out– mainly, the type of house that a certain character lives in and where said house is located. You wouldn’t believe all the things someone’s house tells about them, and this character’s in particular is extremely important.

Last year, when I first started on the sequel in small bits of plotting, I had an original idea for where he lived, but then later tossed it out in favor of a different one. Now months later, after hopping around from idea to idea, I just zipped right back to the way it originally came out and found that it was the right way all along. I work interestingly that way, and on some things in The Farfield Curse spent years debating back and forth only to find that my original idea was better than all the others I had later invented.

Anyhow, I am falling into bed in an exhausted stupor and my posts here and on TwilightGuy.com will be scattered this week. But hopefully those photos will suffice for a bit (I can see some people already packing their bags to go see those wondrous things in the pictures).

While waiting at the airport in Seattle, I also bought two books. One was Tunnels by Gordon and Williams, and the other, coincidentally, was the famous John Green novel Looking For Alaska. It seemed fitting enough as a souvenir.