Wiffledust Creative Writing Challenge #7-"What I Didn't Do On My Summer Vacation But Secretly Wish I Had..."

Alaska. That's what I didn't do on my summer vacation, but secretly wished I had. I'm an Alaskaphile. I should probably be in a twelve-step program. I could claim my obsession is the direct result of living in a dust colored, pancake-flat, semi-arid state where the annual snowfall is measured in negative numbers. But the truth is, I have no idea where this came from. I just found it one day whilst rambling around inside my head and haven't been able to get rid of it. The closest I've been is Seattle, but in my mind, Alaska is never far away. Now and then, it's in my dreams.

When I was small our situation was such that we didn't take real vacations. While my girlfriends were spending their summers in romantically named places like The Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole and The Outter Banks, I traveled with my family to Lazy Lake and Newman's Camp and Bee Mountain. My father owned his own business and couldn't afford to be absent for more than a weekend. And he loved to fish. So, all our vacation experiences were fishing trips within an hour of home and no more than three days long.

Don't get me wrong - my memories of those trips are treasures and fishing is still one of my favorite relaxations. But I wanted to go back to school at the end of summer and have the name and description of some exotic locale with which to mystify my schoolmates.

As an adult I've been afforded the opportunity to travel outside of my home state. And I've found a number of places that I've truly enjoyed and try to get back to as often as possible. But I've yet to set foot in Alaska and I'm worried that the chances are getting fewer as time goes by. The biggest problem is that I don't want to be a tourist. I don't want to take a cruise through Prince William Sound with a couple hundred of my closest friends. I want to step outside my comfort zone and be a part of the insanely wonderful breathtaking vastness and beauty of our 49th state. I want to watch eagles from the shoreline in Homer. Learn to snowshoe across the back-country at Kenai. Ride a dogsled across the Alaska Range, at sunrise. Poke around an abandoned mining camp. See Denali from the air in a bush plane. Stand in swift-moving water up to my hips with a fly rod in hand and a hungry salmon ready to strike. Eat lunch at the Coast Guard station in Kodiak and listen to the stories they have to tell. Spend an afternoon in the Museum Of The Aleutians and try to conjure the images my country-boy-turned-soldier father must have seen there during WWII. Stand on Front Street in Nome and watch the first and last Iditarod mushers slide under the burled arch. Spend a day learning photography from Jeff Schultz and Patrick Endres. Spend an evening in Dutch throwing back Duck Farts with those crab fishermen. Stand at the tip end of the Seward Peninsula and try to see Russia. Walk for a mile down the frozen Yukon River.

The list is endless. It could take a year. Or a lifetime. And anything less won't work, so I may just have to keep wishing for Alaska for my summer vacation.