Hello! My Name is Natalie.

It's been so long, I'm afraid you've forgotten my face. Allow me to re-introduce myself. My name is Natalie and we've met, but it was last year and my hair was probably a different color....

I haven't been posting. There are reasons - 2012 went out with an apocalyptic bang and 2013 entered similarly - but I've not forgotten my dear blog. Consider this my reentry to the blogosphere.

Here's is the quick update of what I've been up to:

1. I've teamed up with a diverse group of debuting YA authors and we've just launched our blog. We are The Fourteenery - 14 YA Authors Debuting in 2014. (Obligatory prize post here). This is a group of women I've been working with for several months and I'm excited and delighted to be engaged in this collaborative venture.
2. Tumblr! I love it. And I'm Obviously Parker (obviously).
3. The Official 2014 Debut Young Adult and Middle Grade author group has launched! If you'd like the bird's eye view of what's coming down those roads, check out the OneFour KidLit blog and/or Twitter feed.
4. Texas! For the first time in my life, I visited the great state of Texas for a writing retreat. 21 writers, 5 days, 2 houses, 1 river. As you can imagine, it was as exhausting as it was recharging.

In lieu of anything more, I'll leave you with this picture of the world's largest pecan. Which I found in Texas. And touched.
More soon. Ciao for now.

Overdue / How I was defeated by a sink

Well. October happened.

But before October, there was September and that month was filled with travel and adventure.

Sometime over the summer, Tessa and I decided we'd be joining a few other YA writers on a retreat in the wilds of the French countryside. However, we seem incapable of hopping the pond without also stopping in the UK, so the trip quickly morphed into a two-week, two-country extravaganza. And it was brilliant.

In England alone, we met editors, agents, writers, bloggers, and family members. We rode the London Eye (after multiple trips to England, it was high time we knocked that one off our list), visited the Rosetta stone, got gouged by the Tube, walked miles and miles and miles, had a pint at The Anchor (which boasts many a debaucherous night with Charles Dickens), happened upon Douglas Adams' grave (as well as many cats), and more.

But it's the hotel room I really want to talk about. The sink inside it, to be more precise.

You see, I'm convinced it was a practical joke. It was not meant to be used by anyone sporting a head.

It's worth noting that Tessa and I have traveled together a lot. Not to and from Mississippi to visit my family, but all over Japan, Bali, and Europe. We backpacked through eight countries when we were sophomores in college. We're practiced travelers. We've managed crises in countries where neither of us spoke the language and returned with all our limbs in tact.

And England defeated us with a sink.

The bathroom in this establishment had clearly been a closet once upon a time, but as space is at a premium in London, it was converted into a bathroom with a toilet crammed in one end and a shower stall in the other. In the middle was a sink no wider than a loaf of bread and no longer than the same. It was petite. Adorable even, and smart given the restraints of the room.

Clever, I thought, to make a sink small enough that the door can still close!

I was so charmed by it's size, that it didn't occur to me that the shelf above the sink, of approximately the same dimensions, would be a problem.

Until I brushed my teeth and leaning down to spit found only the shelf and not the sink staring back at me.

I stopped. Considered. Bent my knees to see if it would be possible to hit the sink from a shorter height. (It is not). Then, I tried to squish my head between the shelf and the sink and be very careful with my aim. This....was only partly successful.

The floor got messy. I got messy. Tessa giggled. I giggled. I looked for some explanation. Some clue that I was doing it wrong, that in my travels, I'd forgotten how to sink. But no. This was THE sink. There was no way to push the shelf out of the way, flip it up or down. Clearly, I was supposed to be capable of using this travesty of a sink.

AND YET.

I eventually gave up. A shower works just as well as a sink and one of our precious towels had already been sacrificed to this great international practical joke.

And every single time I or Tessa went to use the sink, we had to relive the humiliation ALL OVER AGAIN. Half of the time, we knocked our heads against the shelf before remembering. Then there was the half-blind swivel between the sink and shower as we tried to wash our faces - that was an entirely different sort of crazy. Four days we were there and we left feeling relieved and confused.

Thankfully, our apartment in Paris greeted us with not one, but TWO unchallenging sinks.

I still don't understand how that happened. It was more a gesture at a sink than a sink. I wish I had a picture to share. Alas, I was laughing too hard to snap one.

Well played, England. Well played.

Why I haven't been blogging

Because I've been here...

And here...

Back in a bit. Probably with stories.

In Search of Bonkers

I made an intriguing discovery on a recent trip through western Kansas. Well, I suppose I made several discoveries, one of which is that the hills around Fort Riley are ridiculously well prepared for a zombie attack. Not only did we spot a fleet of helicopters, but they’ve got this cannon all set up and ready to blast the approaching horde. This is extremely thoughtful of them. And it’s telling that they seem to think the attack will come from the west.

Sorry all you west coasters, but this cannon is clearly pointed your way for a Very Good Reason.

(Note to whatever agencies I’ve alerted by writing this post: I’m assuming these things weren’t secret because I observed all of it from I-70. Which totally makes sense. Zombies don’t require covert anything. Just cannons and attack copters.)

I was greatly comforted by this discovery as I’m sure you can imagine.

 The other discovery was less comforting, but just as interesting.

Every time I’m in a place that feels something like “the middle of nowhere” I search for this candy I loved as a child called Bonkers. It’s probably been discontinued for years, but I have this feeling that there’s some gas station somewhere with an unending stash of Bonkers and I just have to find it.

Never mind the fact that it would be EXTREMELY UNWISE to consume Bonkers were I to find them as they would likely be as old as Full House by this point. I just sort of want to see them again and okay, I would probably eat them. Hey, people eat Moon Pies all the time and they HAVE to be as bad for you as decades old candy.

So we were in this gas station in the middle of the middle of nowhere, Kansas and ‘lo and behold, I didn’t find Bonkers, but I did find something nearly as exciting: Big Hunk.

I’d never heard of this candy, but…it’s called Big Hunk. How could I not buy that?

But it wasn’t done being delightful. As soon as I got back to the car and started examining my new discovery, I found that this candy comes with eating instructions. You can’t just unwrap and take a bite out of this thing. Or, I guess you can, but it’s not what they advise. Big Hunk requires special attention in order to be enjoyed properly. It requires smacking and/or heating and I think, perhaps, a vlog when I finally get around to trying it.

I’ll keep looking for Bonkers because it’s good to have goals when exploring the candy aisles of gas stations, but for now, I’m mollified.

Signs

It seems I've been traveling for all of June. It's not far from the truth. I've only spent 14 days of June in my own home. That's more than half the month spent in beds not my own. Which. Recently, isn't really such a bad thing if we're considering the spider invasion.

This past month, I've spent time in Washington, DC, New York City, Columbia, Missouri, and Norman, Oklahoma. And looking back through my photo album, I noticed a strange trend: signs. Everywhere I went, I took pictures of signs.

It all started in DC, when we came around a corner to cut through the drive of a hospital and discovered this:


Angel of Death? Grim Reaper with a bone saw? Icarus? I'm not entirely sure of anything other than its inherent awesomeness.

Next up, New York, with a sense of humor when it comes to its ice cream.

Maybe he's just super sensitive....

Then, it was a diner in Columbia, Missouri. We're best buds, now. Me and the diner. Because no other place of business has ever supported me like this: 

And finally, Norman, Oklahoma. Where we encountered enigmatic chalk signs...

 One required a Tessa-shaped being for scale:


But the clear winner of all the signs we encountered we found in our own B&B:

I can't imagine this one requires much comment.

On not attending BEA

A short time ago, thousands of people in the publishing industry descended upon a single convention center in New York City for one mother of an expo. It's one of the largest "book" events of the year and it attracts authors, editors, agents, librarians, book sellers, bloggers, superheroes, villains, cab drivers...the list goes on.

I did not attend Book Expo America, but being attached to someone who was attending, I did travel to New York at the time of BEA and I did reap a few benefits.

It ended up being one of the most surreal five days of my life and not only because I encountered Spiderman on the street, and ate more cupcakes than in all the years of my life combined.

Possibly the surrealitude of the week could be contributed to the total lack of sleep one can achieve while renting an apartment with friends you only see a few times a year. Possibly it was due to the fact that in said apartment, two blocks from Central Park, the noise of the city barrels through the windows at all hours of the day and night to throw erratic parties on your eardrums. Possibly it was due to the lack of actual oxygen in the air…

 

Possibly it was the cupcakes.

Either way, three things happened in New York which have altered my life in slight, yet significant ways.

First – In a little coffee shop on Tenth Avenue, I met three incredible women and I'm still surprised the shop survived our impact. The first, my agent, who is as kind and dynamic in person as she is via email. The second, my editor, who impressed me all over again with her passion for the work and BEWARE THE WILD. The third, my editor's assistant, who was insightful and equally as excited about BTW. Sitting there, with a small group of people who had found a way to love this story as much as I do, who are every bit as committed to putting in the time and energy to making it better, I realized again just how incredibly lucky I am.

Second – This one requires a modicum of backstory. When I was fourteen years old, I left my childhood home in Virginia and moved to Yokosuka, Japan. I was only there for two years, but I never made it back to the east coast and eventually fell out of touch with all my childhood friends. Such is the life of a Navy child. But – prepare yourselves, I’m about to say something NICE about Facebook – Facebook (for all its faults) changed that.

I fell back into touch with M and after nearly two solid decades of estrangement we had a four-hour reunion in the middle of New York City. We spent much of the time staring at each other in amazement saying truly profound things to each other.

Me: I can’t believe you’re in front of me.
Him: I can’t believe I’m taller than you.
Me: ……*goofy grin*

We were so wrapped up in nostalgia that after 20 minutes of walking way too fast, I felt the axis of the world shift and suddenly ALL THE PEOPLE were around me.

Me: M! ARE WE IN TIMES SQUARE?
Him: *slow blink* Yes.
Me: HOW DID WE GET HERE?
Him: ….we…walked?

Which brings me to the third life-altering experience I had in NYC.

There’s really no way to be tactful about this, but I’m going to try because this is something that may save your life in the future.

If you take away nothing else from my non-BEA experience, take this one lesson: NYC DOESN’T CARE ABOUT YOUR BLADDER.

No. It’s true. And it’s important you know this because discovering it when you’re twenty blocks away from your apartment, all the Starbucks are closing because it’s 10pm, and you’re too stubborn to hail a cab isn’t something I’d recommend.

I mean, it might change your life, but not in a Hunger Games sort of way. Rather, this will change your life in a Trainspotting sort ofway where the world is suddenly very loud and very strange (which is really saying something for NYC), and all the doors are locked and the shopkeepers all look like Delores Umbridge, and then you discover you don’t even have a key to your apartment and no one is answering your texts so WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU GET HOME? WHAT HAPPENS THEN???

It is FAR from pleasant.

So, there you have it, my recipe for how to have one singularly intense day in New York City. Passing ife-saving advice on to you is really just a bonus.

The Canyon via Junipers

The problem with the Grand Canyon is that it doesn't look real. And unless you have some wicked fancy macro lens, your camera isn't going to help with that. It didn't take very long for me to realize that all my photos of the canyon were going to look exactly the same. Same rocks. Different angle. Each looking like a romantic painting of a striking landscape.

So! I turned to the local abundance of juniper trees for assistance. They make marvelous models, it turns out. They're so emotive, so friendly, so shockingly versatile, which is how I ended up with a series I'm calling, Juniper in Repose at the Grand Canyon.

First up, the model I like to imagine crept upon the canyon in the dead of night, then awoke to discover how close it had come to falling in, Juniper Startled:

Second, Juniper in Awe:

Third, the Juniper who wished to be a Condor:

Fourth, the Giving Juniper + Tessa:

And finally, Yesterday's Juniper (taken 1,000 feet down in the canyon wall):

There you have it: the Grand Canyon via the life and times of a juniper tree.

The trip of trains and canyons

For years and years, we’ve been talking about making a trip to the Southwestern US to see the Grand Canyon. Partly because Tessa loves the region and partly because I’d never been. So, we decided it was high time we made good on this particular item on the Someday List. We bought train tickets (because what’s an adventure without trains?), booked a package via the Grand Canyon Railway, and took off.

Neither of us has traveled extensively by train in the US, so this was an incredible way to spend 4 and a half days. The trip ended up being as much about the train as it was about the canyon. Let me just break it down by hours because I suspect it will be impressive.

Hours spent on the Southwestern Chief (to/from Williams, AZ): 52
Hours spent on the Grand Canyon Railway (to/from the park): 5
Hours in the park, doing parkly things: 28
Hours in Williams (mostly sleeping and watching outlaw re-enactors): 21
Total trip hours: 106

My take-away? Train travel is beautiful and slow. Perfect for two writers searching for inspiration, but maybe not for obsessive clock-watchers.

We had perfect weather and even though I had my laptop handy, I had a very difficult time prying my eyes away from the changing landscape. We went from the plains, to mountains, to desert – gold to green to rust red.

As a bonus, my bed came with a handy harness that strapped into the ceiling to keep Natalie from falling to the ground in a graceless splat. I felt like an astronaut.

And then there was the canyon. Whoa, that canyon! It wasn’t what I was expecting. I think in my mind, the Grand Canyon was in a barren landscape like Tatooine, with a vicious, toothy maw in the bottom.

But, it is not.

In fact, there was an entire forest around the Southern Rim and shrubs grow all the way down to the bottom of the canyon. Pines that smell like vanilla, and shrubs that look like they’ll cut you if you stray too close.

In any case, the canyon brought out one of the key differences between Tessa and me, and it has something to do with self-preservation.

Bonus points if you can tell me which of the women in this picture is representative of me. HINT: I’m the Sagittarius.

I really wanted to hike down into the canyon and if I’d planned more time and packed better hiking clothes, I’d have hiked all the way to Phantom Ranch to stay the night all the way down at the bottom. As it was, though, we had time to hike down the 1.5 mile trail and back up again. 

This is the point at which the Grand Canyon pulls one over on those of us used to mountains and hills and other things that go up. The canyon trails suck you in. They look easy. They look fun. You’re cruising downhill and looking at the world rising up around you. You’re excited to see what’s ahead, what’s through that next nifty looking tunnel, what’s around that next switchback.

It’s all exciting and wonderful and EASY.

But then, it’s time to go back up. And that’s when things get painful. Not only is the uphill climb interminable and hard, but you’ve already seen the view from the top. THERE IS NOTHING NEW AHEAD OF YOU. It’s not like a mountain hike, where you’ve got the view AND the downhill trek to look forward to. No. It’s all pain and sweat just to get back to the vantage point you’ve already seen. It’s insult to injury, I tell ya, and it’s only by the sheer desire to survive that you reach the top again. 

The Grand Canyon has a dark sense of humor.

But I don’t regret making the hike. What’s a victory without a little pain?

Queries and Cappuccinos

There's something about winter that makes a cappuccino at any hour of the day sound like a good idea. (Okay, in all honesty, there's also something about any month ending in y that makes cappuccinos sound good, but that's beside the point. Winter is the point.) I find winter drinks irresistibly cozy. Triple-y so if I'm traveling. Which means that I've spent most of December Highly Caffeinated. Also, at zero risk for developing a calcium deficiency anytime soon. This is a good thing as I've also spent a good portion of December doing revisions and critiquing three full manuscripts.

(As an aside, I found the most amazing cappuccino I've ever tasted/seen while in Merida, Mexico. DO YOU SEE THE FOAM? HAVE YOU EVER SEEN ANYTHING SO DIVINE? There was no other way to drink this than to sacrifice all dignity and give yourself over to a cinnamon face-plant. I, for one, didn't hesitate to toss my dignity out the front door.)

I'm approximately seven cappuccinos away from finishing this round of revision. It's timely, I think, to be wrapping up at the new year. I've seen a number of people in the writing community doing similar things like brushing up queries and pitches and since I probably didn't get you anything for the holidays, I'm going to give away a few query crits. This isn't totally selfless. I'll treat myself to one cappuccino per query I crit, so really, I'm enabling myself to stay caffeinated.

Okay! So! Have a query? Want my eyes? Here are the rules:

1.  Your query should look like a cappuccino! By which I mean, in the subject line of your email to nataliecparker AT gmail DOT com, please include: CAPPUCCINO QUERY!  
2. Your query should taste like a cappuccino! By which I mean, it should include the component pieces of any query: the intro, the pitch, the closing remarks. It should be polished and pretty!
3. Your query should smell like a cappuccino! ... /metaphor Please copy and paste your query into the body of your email. No attachements. 

That's it. First five emails to hit my inbox get my eyes. 

Happy winter, everyone. I hope you'll treat yourself to a cappuccino (or bubble tea.....I don't really know what tea drinkers do for a treat) and feel a little extra cozy.    

UPDATE - I've got my 5 queries, so this offer is closed. Give me another few months, though, and there'll be another.

A town called Campeche

For most of our trip, we stayed in a town called Campeche. It's south of Merida and a good middle point for exploring mangroves and petenes, but I could have spent days just walking through the colorful streets of this city.

And by colorful, I mean this place has ALL of the colors. This was what I saw when I stepped through the doors of my hotel:


We were told that it was a real "Pirates of the Caribbean" type town (and it has all the Renaissance Festival style pirate themed pubs, restaurants, and knick-knacks to prove it). Back in the days of yore, the place was so put upon by pirates that they protected themselves from invasion by surrounding the bulk of the town in battlements. Many of these battlements still stand tall, which gave the town a very European feel - castles and churros are a delightful combination, I tell you.



Campeche is also something of an uneven city. The ground wasn't scaled when the buildings went up, which seemed to be a point of frustration to those who built the sidewalks. They, at least, are level, which was a sometimes a challenge...


From the top of the battlements we could also see that many of these lovely buildings were not all that they seemed to be. They hide a wilderness inside....I wanted to explore them.


There was a secret place inside one of the battlements with recreation musket rifles and halberds. So, of course, this happened:


And finally, Campeche is home to a cathedral I could not capture well enough with my lens. On our first night in the city, I watched a group of women bless and carry a tall statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe around the square and into the church. She was dressed in blue and waiting inside to receive the many pilgrimaging Guadalupanos.

Uxmal Ruins

I've been a horrible blogger during this trip to Mexico. Not because what I'm doing isn't blog-worthy, but I've been critiquing manuscripts and writing for and getting lost in the week long celebration that is the Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe. But tonight, it's raining and the festivities are quiet.

I'm staying in an 1800 barracks-turned-hotel in Campeche, Mexico, a World Heritage site. We're leaving tomorrow and I'll be sad to see it go, but I'm looking forward to exploring Merida.

But to backtrack a bit. Here is a photo-essay of my first full day in Mexico, exploring the ruins of Uxmal, a Mayan complex built beginning in 850AD.






Are you kidding? OF COURSE I crawled through that hole. What would Indian Jones do? (PS - There were lots of iguanas in there. Heads poking out of walls four feet above me. Watching me. Creepy is the word you're looking for.)





This is in Campeche, not Uxmal. About thirty yards from the front door of my hotel and no, it didn't look any more real standing right in front of it. 

November round-up

November certainly has a way of skating out from under me. Everything happens at this time of year. Elections, pumpkin pies, 65% of the people in my life were born in November (including myself), and 82% of the people I know give themselves over to novel-writing fury! It's a wonderfully creative month and I can't love it enough. And then it's gone. *dramatic sigh*

I spent my November tagging along with the NaNo folks, finishing a re-draft of a novel I already loved and needed to love more. Now that it's in the hands of my terribly clever crit partner, I'm reading for several other people and letting myself enjoy the energy of a new idea.

For anyone wondering how my month of no sugar went, I am happy to report it was a complete success. No particulars here, but I am extremely pleased with the experiment. Not only do I feel better now than I did at the beginning (both physically and emotionally), but I came away from it with a much better understanding of how sneaky sugars can be. Seriously, refined and cane sugars are pervasive. It's disturbing, but not insurmountable. To anyone struggling with feeling happy in their bodies, I cannot recommend this experiment enough. More details are in the post I linked to above.

Next week, I'll be off on another day-job adventure. This time we're heading south to the Yucatan Peninsula for 10 days where we'll explore ancient Mayan ruins and tromp through mangrove forests. I'll report as I go, but I've been told that the mangrove forests are the one place on earth anyone recommends wearing 100% DEET.

O_O

Also, I need scuba booties.

I say again, O_O.

Even so, I'm excited. These trips have a way of being utterly amazing (see tag: I love my job for more trips!). These trips also have a way of making me thankful when we return with the same number of people we departed with...

And in other completely unrelated news, I'm still struggling with the idea of mirroring my blog on another platform given LJ's consistent hankiness. I've worked with Blogger before, but didn't fall in love. So, I'm considering WordPress. Anyone have any thoughts about this? Strong opinions welcome.

But what about the boots?!

I have more things I could write about my short trip to Alaska. I could write about the seafood, the local brews (coffee and beer!), the bald eagles I met on a rooftop or how I came to discover that Alaskan garbage cans can save you from a bear attack. But I think the topic you're all dying to hear about is a little more pressing - rubber boots.

If you have no idea why you're dying to hear about the rubber boots, I'll direct you to the first post on the topic -> here there be boots.

And I want to thank everyone who shared their wisdom in that particular conversation. Your input was invaluable. So, what did I end up purchasing? KEENS! These Keens to be exact (though I found them at a much more reasonable price!). They took up roughly 32% of the space in my suitcase and added an extra 20 pounds, but I stuffed them full of wool socks and packed light on everything else.

The first two days in Juneau, I thought the rubber boot warning a little extreme. Though they do "cinder" the streets and the soil is constantly freezing and melting off, covering the sidewalks with muddy water, it hardly warranted the level of vehemence I picked up in our conference calls. Nevertheless, I was pleased to have my boots while trekking to and from the hotel and deciding they would be useful for similarly murky times in Kansas.

On the third day, we hit the glacier and that was when I realized exactly why I had my rubber boots. Grippy and insulated, they made the trek to and from the glacier (which we have now decided was roughly 5 miles total) much more comfortable than it otherwise would have been.

My colleagues who did not take the rubber boot warning seriously, ended up wading through piles of snow and slush in nothing more than tennis shoes. More than once I heard people asking how quickly frost bite could settle in and I was more than a little worried that we would not return to Kansas with as many digits as we arrived with.

Just imagine walking through this for a mile in your regular, lightweight tennis shoes. . .



Obviously, no one lost any toes, but I was far more comfortable at the end of the day than many. Even the Alaska folks (who predominantly wore XtraTufs - bonus points to everyone who recommended those) were approving of my bright blue babies.

How blue were they? GLACIER BLUE.



They served me well, I must say. Very well, indeed. In fact, the joy you see on my face below? That's all about the boots.

Okay, and maybe a little about the glacier, too.

...

Maybe a lot about the glacier, but at least partly about the boots. Let's say 32% about the boots.



So here is what I know: if you're going to Alaska, TAKE RUBBER BOOTS.

Also, a side note of awesome about that last picture - I called Tessa Gratton from that exact spot. And texted her that picture. From the middle of a frozen lake, chilling on an iceberg, about to lick a glacier, I was able to share that moment with her. CRAZY.

Moar Glacier Pr0n

One brief addendum.

Of our group of 33, only 2 climbed up and into that teardrop cave. One of those two is pictured below and she paid the price in a little bit of blood on her way out of said cave.

But I'm so glad she did because omgthecolors!

Mendenhall Glacier

Yesterday afternoon, we all took a break from conferencing and signed up for various field trips. One of those trips was to hike out to the Mendenhall Glacier and I don't remember what the others were because they did not include the words "hike" or "glacier."

We piled into a school bus and made the incredibly short trek from downtown Juneau to the Tongass National Forest. And basically, we came around a corner and BLAM! GLACIER!

None of these pictures are going to do the experience justice, I'll just put that out there.

Even from a distance of 1.5 miles, we could see how blue the ice was and how fractured and ready for calving (*gulp*).

Cue the science - See where I'm standing? Approximately 1.5 miles from the face of the glacier? Well, in 1938, you could touch the glacier from pretty much right there. This thing has seen tremendous loss of sea ice in the past century and even in the past five years. Changes both dramatic and startling.

We were told that as it is March, and the thing between us and the glacier is a melting lake, trekking out to the glacier from was NOT recommended. The last calving event (when mama glaciers birth baby bergs) was on March 4th (*gulp*).

But out we all went because when are we ever going to be so close to a glacier like this again and the ice looks good and solid. . .

So away we went! And here's the thing about trekking across an lake covered in ice and snow - you are constantly falling. Not down on your hands and knees, but through the snow until it decides to catch you again and laugh at your expense. Basically, I spent a lot of time feeling the ground give way beneath me and wondering if I'd actually found a whole that would drop me into the freezing lake.

I'm really not joking.

Really.

Here's proof.

This was very close to the glacier where icebergs had torn through giant sections of lake and we had to tread very, very carefully.

Unnerving doesn't really begin to cover it, but again, worth it and what kind of Sagittarius would I be if I didn't do things that make normal people make the o_O face?

And why did we cross the hole of icy death? To get to the other side!!!



I did not actually make it to that tear drop cave because as my group and I  stood strategizing our approach (which berg to climb? is that the ice that guy fell through a few minutes ago?) we watched the rough edge of the ice sheet we stood on break away and fall into the lake. It was followed by many a groaning, popping sound you DON'T want to hear ice make unless it's on your TV screen and collectively decided to put a little distance between us and the unstable ice.

(I'm not the craziest of Sag's after all!)

On our way back to solid ground, there were bear tracks and water falls and many a breath-taking sight. I'm including a few of my favorite photos below. They can tell you better than I can this morning just how much beauty lives in that ice.

Looking through the ice.


Melting.


A risky journey to the ice face.


Midnight sun (okay, not really, but sorta).

Alaska

After 3 flights including 4 take-offs and landings, 2 buses and 18 hours, we arrived at our hotel in Alaska. Considering the grueling schedule and the fact that I was coordinating travel for 19 people, it was actually a relatively easy trip.

Our stop in Seattle was long enough for me to grab a bowl of Ivar's clam chowder which I haven't had since I lived in the area nearly a decade ago (um, whoa how time flies). I may have squealed with culinary joy when I saw the sign and promptly took control of the dinner decision. The people with me are now Ivar's converts. If you ever get to Seattle, this is a MUST eat. Do not pass go!

And we interrupt this Ivar's lovefest for an image the Coastal Range, which we flew over on our way to Juneau via Kechikan.




By the time we got here, most of us were pretty sure we'd traveled far enough to be on another continent or at least in another country. And even now, having slept, Alaska still feels a little like another country. It's a place where someone from farther north can ask, "So, are all your roads in Juneau paved?" and it's a totally legitimate question. I feel it's important to remind you at this time that Juneau is the state capitol.

PS - Did you know you can only get to Juneau by air or by sea? There are no roads in or out. I can't decide if this is a good thing or a bad thing for surviving the zombie apocalypse.

Suppose it depends on where it starts. And how. /over-thinking it

It's the end of our first full day here and I'm still totally confused about the time and this advertisement I walked past:



I don't know why I find this as disturbing as I do, but the diamond mustache is just so. . . weird. I mean, why did this seem like a good idea? Can you explain it to me? Please try.

Also, the ravens here are big enough to EAT MY CATS. And when they caw at you, it's about like you would expect.

Terrifying.



And finally, a shot of the harbor and the mountains of Douglas Island. Tomorrow, the conference officially begins and soon after will be our trip out to Mendenhall glacier!

So far, the rubber boots have seen zero action, but they promise the weather will turn by morning and then they will be out and about!