The Denali Moment.

After working in the tourist industry all summer long, I was chalk-full of hilarious and utterly ignorant tourist questions (one of the most popular being "what is the elevation here?"). One story a river guide told us while we were rafting the Tatshenshini this summer, was about a group of guided tourists also floating down the river, who kept asking their guide "when is the Denali moment? When is the Denali moment?!"

They expected their trip to be exactly like all the beautiful pictures they'd seen - but of course, you can never count on Alaska, can you? Gorgeous and sunny one moment, hailing the next.

I came to France hoping that at some point I would experience the French version of "the Denali moment," but after living in AK, you learn to just take it as it comes.

I got it this morning.

I don't have classes until 4:30 this afternoon, so I got to sleep in (although I can't sleep any later than 8:30) so at 9:00 I had on my running shoes and was headed down the road in front of my house. With a lime-green-neon windbreaker on because 1)it is a windstopper (Cecile told me) and 2) French drivers are crazy. She was definitely right about the crazy part. I jumped a couple times when the cars zoomed past me at 120-130 km/hr (75-80 mph).

The sun was just rising, the sky was blue, and I ran to a pink brick church in Montpitol, past several large green fields. All right - some of them were brown fields, because it's not sunflower season anymore, but I still thought it was gorgeous. So without writing anymore boring details, I'll just say I stopped running, and appreciated what I was running in. And thought "dannit (word attributed to Julia Bovee, who cannot say "dangit" so it comes out as dannit instead) I should have brought the camera." Then I realized that sometimes, my memory is just good enough. I'll run again, and take a picture, but the first time (sorry guys) is all mine.

And then there are the other AK moments -

Like the one where I sent the whole house (included some very good friends) into uproarious laughter after revealing my extremely white legs. Perfect. Last night Camille assured me that they will bring me to the beach this summer.

It sounded more like a science project than anything else.

Oh well. I guess I can live with that. : )