My states! My poor states!

April 04, 2009

Filed in: Alaska, Hawaii, Kansas, North Dakota

Okay, first, you may have seen that Mt. Redoubt erupted and has pretty much kept on erupting since March 22. We flew right beside Redoubt – it’s on the same peninsula as where we went bear viewing.

In fact, while we were taking our scary/thrilling ride over there, L., the broken crazy bearish man who was the only other person in our tour, told a story about flying straight over the top of Redoubt – when you do that, because of the cone of super-heated air, the plane pitches wildly either up or down, I can’t remember which (seems like it would be up, right? But for some reason I remember L. saying the plane drops like a stone…will have to consult with an aviation expert and get back to you on that one).

Anyhow, it blew (more on that here, which is also where I ganked the photo from), and now the poor hungry bears, who are getting ready to wake up and still have three months to wait for the salmon, if they ever even come like they did not last year, are going to have to pass the time eating ash-covered cow parsnips, which are kinda bitter to begin with. Poor bears.

And speaking of pity, what about poor North Dakota, flooding and April blizzards and chunks of ice the size of cars whipping down the rivers? Even in this unrelentlessly long recession, I’m still fantasizing in the back of my mind that we’re going to get to another state this summer, and if we did, North Dakota would be it.

Part of me now wants to go to spend our meager tourist dollars in a place where they’d be welcomed and needed. Another part – remembering what N said after she lived through some pretty bad flooding in Iowa a decade or so ago – is like, ew, flood means musty, moldy, buggy etc. Yes, I’m aware that’s almost unspeakably shallow of me, so I’ll shut up now.

As far as I can tell, nothing particular is going on in Kansas right now, other than their economy is so bad the governor can’t wait to get out of there, and who can blame her?

Hawaii is happy. And why wouldn’t it be? Hot, sunny, native son now president…it’s always a good day in Hawaii.