The Walkabout: Kenai Fjords: 4500 Miles Close To Home

Sure I puttered around Seward for a while. The town was the launch pad from which all Kenai Fjords excursions would set off. It was here though, along the rocky shores of the bay that it really hit me how far from home I had come. Speaking to my parents and my grandparents inbetween parks had become a regular weekly activity...my link back home over the last month or so. A link bolstered by occasional conversations with friends and family back home like my brothers, Jack, Vince, Bret, Angel, my work gang, and many others. But it was one conversation with Bret that made me long for home and its no surprise why. Bret, in a passing conversation, mentioned his still faraway celebration of the annual Boar's Head Feast during the Christmas season. It was his mentioning of this that set off a chain reaction of longing, nostalgia, and desire for a safe return to any sign of my former comfort zone. Christmas! My kryptonite. Anyone who knows me is probably not surprised by this...and a fitting time it is to make this post as we enter the season of good tidings. The promise of one day being back home and surrounded by loved ones was so hopeful.

So as I was speaking to Bret about plans for the still distant time of annual merriment, I was struck dumb by the ominous beauty before me. Along the fjords' rocky shores, I sat stupefied. Nothing special about the day...in fact the weather was gloomy at best. But for whatever reason, the gloom only amplified the mystery that cloaked my surroundings. Following an extensive period of self-reflection and perpetual longing, I grappled with the prospect of the challenges that still lay ahead. I was now, more than ever, determined to push through, while still appreciating, the tests ahead of me so that in 3 months time I could be back home and putting up Christmas decorations - a time of joy before eventually making my way south for the winter to once again battle the elements.

Please enjoy the view as I did...

Well I chose this song because I'm basically neck deep into the Christmas spirit and its a fitting reflection of the music my brain was making while I sat on the shore thinking about home. I don't care that its from Love Actually! But hey, who doesn't like that movie, right? Well probably terrible people.