Alaska Awaits

Well it has been a long couple years. I've even gone on an adventure since my last entry, but due to lack of time, I simply never spent the time scribing the details of my time in The Holy Land. But now I'm here for a new adventure, one unlike anything I've ever done before. It's a long journey ahead, and I don't plan to filter my thoughts because that's what makes the journey so honest and interesting.

Contrary to the blog title, my trip this time will not be overseas. It will be cross-continental, and I will have a companion. I will be traveling with my brother, via a 2003 Mitsubishi Galant, from Albany, NY to Anchorage, Alaska. 4,400 miles (7,100km) give or take. It's hard for some to fathom that distance, but it's approximately the same as me driving across the Atlantic from NYC to Sicily, Italy.

Will I want to strangle my brother? Probably at least once. Will only one of us come back? Yes. Cool your jets, my friends. No one is going to be murdered, because that only one returning is the plan. My brother is moving there for an amazing Americorps stint, so naturally I will be the only one returning to the East Coast.

I've never seen the Great Plains or much of Canada at all. And while I can't say I'm looking forward to spending most of my days crammed in that sweat box of a car and not being able to stop and take pictures of everything I want to, I am excited to see what the sprawling vistas have in store as I cross not one, but two massive countries. I also hope to see a supercell, from a distance. It's the right time of year, and I have always loved weather and those massive storm systems leave me in awe me every time I see a photo or video on The Weather Channel. Weather fangirling aside, I plan to be pretty honest about what I'm feeling and what I'm experiencing on this journey, so perhaps keep track of how many times I get annoyed at my brother, and how many times I get excited about the bonding experience we are sharing.

My brother and I are two very different people. My brother is far more easy-going than I am, and as I've described him a few times in the week leading up to this trip, he's "much more tolerant of the uncertain than I am." I am severely anxious and stressed, even though I'm not the one moving to the other side of the world. I have a tendency to picture everything that can go wrong, an unhealthy side effect of that aforementioned anxiety, so that will certainly be weighing on my mind every time we drive a stretch of isolated highways or are cruising behind a semi.

It's time to finish loading the maps for offline, downloading movies to my tablet, and caching podcasts to my phone.

Onwards! Alaska Awaits. You can keep up with my journey without having to wait for a post via instagram!

Current playlist: The No Sleep Podcast.