Everything is tougher in AK

We have a saying here that we jokingly use when life gets rough and it is "Everything is tougher in Alaska!" Alaska is referred to as The Last Frontier with good reason. As one of the country's newest states,  residents here may still enjoy the freedom to live self sufficiently away from towns and cities. This freedom is quickly dwindling in the lower 48 because cities are springing up all over the place. When I first moved up here, I kept hearing the term: the Alaskan "bush" but I didn't know what it referred to. Click here for a lesson from Wikipedia. Basically, the bush is a blanket term for areas in this beautiful state that cannot be accessed by roads. Some may be surprised to hear that there are uncharted places in their country's backyard. It's easy to take for granted gas stations on every corner in bigger cities. For you shop-a-holics who may be reading, it's difficult to find anything fashionable in this area of the country. It's just not practical in a land where carharts, flannel, and turtle necks are cool.

It's pretty easy to find yourself in a survival situation pretty quickly here. Sliding off the road out of town, running out of gas on the way to the next stop, or out riding snow machines can be dangereous (as you can see here). The first way to reveal southern roots to an Alaskan is to say "snow mobile" instead of "snow machine." See me trying to acclimate? Anyway, the link above is a news story about a young boy who fell in the ice while riding his snow machine with a friend this week. They found his body yesterday. It's a terrible, unfortunate reminder that Alaska can be a big, mean bully on a playground at times.

I'm glad to have the opportunity to experience life here 125 miles away from the Arctic Circle. I remember saying BJ (Before J) that I would never, ever live in Alaska. Life has a funny way of taking one places they've never dreamt of going! I wonder where else the Army will take us.

Just today, we found out that Jordan's brother has orders to go to Germany. We are so excited for him. What an awesome duty station to get! We look forward to visiting him there and hearing all about his adventures there. I would love if Captain J and I could get stationed there as well. My grandparents lived in Germany for awhile thanks to the U.S. Army so there's a lot of family history there. I have yet to visit, but I can't wait to do so.

Until then, I'm going to enjoy what The Great White North has to offer me here in Alaska. I'm looking forward to warm  warmer weather and getting out and partaking in the summer activities. Bring on Summer Solstice!