Living in the lower 48, let alone the midwest, we are very blessed with fresh meats and produce. Up here, they're blessed with fresh seafood and not much else. The milk I'm drinking right now comes from the State of Washington as does most things. I had a hard boiled egg for breakfast yesterday and it was horrible. Asparagus is served with every dinner around here and it is always frozen and not very good. However, the seafood is absolutely amazing and better than anything I've ever had anywhere.

Speaking of which, last night Chris and I went out to dinner at this restaurant called Simon & Seafort's Saloon and Grill. One side of the restaurant was the old-style saloon and the other side was the restaurant with big picture windows overlooking the mountains and ocean inlet. It was absolutely beautiful. I had clam chowder soup and king crab, all of which was very good. Chris had this crusted dijon mustard chicken which was equally as good.

I saw a rarity last night at 2:30 am-darkness! It was dark, but the sky was this beautiful deep blue, almost purple sky. You could see that in another hour or so it was going to get light again. Unfortunately it was overcast. The aurora forecast says there is mild to moderate aurora activity right now, so all we need is a clear night and we should be able to see some. I'm hoping while we're on the cruise ship we'll get a clear night so we can get a clear view of it-even in Anchorage there's houses and buildings and such that would interrupt what we could see.

Today we're going to head south towards Seward and possibly Kenai Fjords National Park. Right now the sun's out and it's not raining so we're going to go out and take advantage of it. We're not going to do Denali because of the weather and because it's just too far-4, 4 1/2 hours one way to maybe see Mount McKinley.

More later today! Until then, enjoy the flat land fellow Illinoisans!!