The 49th State

SO -- there was a point in my life when it dawned on me that I had traveled in 44 states. That's right. 44. I had actually been in 44 states. It was easy to list the missing states. Georgia, the Carolinas, Louisiana, Alaska and Hawaii.

And I devised a plan. To go to all 50 states by the time I was 50. After that I would see if I could get laid in each of the 50 states. But for now it's just enough to go there. So I started rolling the idea of Alaska around in my mind. Alaska.

And I started to collect the stuff I would need to go there.

A truck. Not any truck, a tough truck, a Kurdish tank. 4WD, raised, tough, and with a 50 caliber machine gun camera mounted on top. One that lives through floods, potholes, hurricanes, snowstorms, etc.

A bicycle. In case I want to go for a ride.

A camera. Oh you know -- to take pictures.

A chain saw.

Camping gear. For me.

Climbing gear. Just in case.

SwimWetsuit.

Shorts.

So I have these things. And a plan. The plan says jump in the truck and ferry up the passage, stop and photograph the white black bears in BC, go to Kenai and Sitka and Juneau, get out to the west coast of Alaska somewhere, drive to Anchorage, then go north to Prudhoe Bay, see the ANWR before it turns into Bakersfield, and go to the Brooks Range and climb see Denali, and visit the occasional friend and drive home through the Yukon Territory, and spend the entire summer doing it. And somehow manage a birding trip to the Aleutian Islands.

I want to see a puffin, a polar bear, a walrus, a brown bear, a dall sheep, a caribou, seals and whales. I am not so sure I want to see a wolf.

A little voice is telling me that this isn't going to happen right away. Another voice wonders, "Do I want some sort of boat?"