I arrived here last Wednesday, a bit apprehensive. I still hadn’t secured a place to stay. I slept in the airport that evening and set out the following morning to follow up on a few places. Fortunately I was able to get a place by the afternoon.

I’ve got 2 roommates, Moon and Tran. Affordable accommodations sell out quickly here.

Initial impressions:
The bus drivers are friendly.
The air is clean, cool, and penetrating. It reminds me of the air in Antarctica, intoxicating.
The sun sets at midnight!
The ground is soft, the grass is lush and also soft.
It feels great to be outside. Mid 60s most days, 50s at night.
It is easy to see mountain ranges in the not so far distance.

There seems to be a fair number of homeless indigenous people, perhaps with mental health afflictions, or perhaps with an uncensored way of acting toward each other. One approached me at the downtown visitor center.
He said, “I’m sad, and blue.”
I said, “I think most people can relate to that.”
He paused but continued to maintain eye contact, as though he were looking straight into my soul, like a conversation you would have with dear friend who was revealing the depth of their suffering, “You have a good heart.”

A few yards away from me, another indigenous man who looked somewhat sedated approached and chatted with a tourist teenage girl sitting with her younger brother by a reindeer hotdog stand. The man backed away from the girl and yelled out, “F** B**, you are a mean person.” The hotdog vender scolded the man who then walked away.

I felt like there was theater 360 degrees around me.

The following day was dedicated to getting my food/ water situation sorted. Like last year’s trip to Ohio, I was surprised how few people opt to buy purified water in bulk from refill stations. My roommates drink the tap, but it tastes like the chlorinated, fluorinated tap water back home. I tried to drink it but would get a distinct headache that localized around my pineal gland. I eventual found a refill station.

Food/ water is on average 2-4x higher here than in south Texas.

Yesterday, my roommate, Moon, took me on hike at the Chugach State Park. He told me you shouldn’t go hiking alone and you shouldn’t go without a gun or bear mace. Moon is in the military. We were joined by his military friend, Bryan. Moon said small guns aren’t effective, so they took rifles, both of them.
We arrive at the trail head. I said I’d carry the backpack, as I wouldn’t know what to do with a gun. As we hiked up the trail, I saw few people with guns and no one else with a rifle. I did see many unsettled faces on hikers coming down the mountain. One man with a gun of his own commented, “You look like you mean business.”
Moon and I hiked a bit faster than Bryan. At some point we were quite a ways ahead. We waited for him to catch up. When he did, we noticed he was joined by another fellow hiker, who also had a gun, but it wasn’t a rifle.
We had to speed hike up the mountain because Bryan had a part time work shift to get to. We eventually made it to the summit where we were rewarded with views of a lake and enlivening breezes. We sped back down the mountain in what paradoxically seemed to take a longer time than going up.
My butt and legs are sore, a familiar recollection of travels past. Vitality somewhat restored. South Texas has its comforts, but its nice to step out of stagnated monotony again.