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Living Alaska — My Prologue Moving to Alaska
Arrival in Alaska on the M.V. Matanuska
Perseverance, Journey to Alaska
Prologue
July 9th, 2021, 4:29 am
I woke up in the Solarium, the M.V. Matanuska, I slept 3 hours. It was cold outside my sleeping bag. I peeked one eye open and then the other, 35 people lay around me in disarray. It mirrored the remains of a High School kegger party gone awry. People passed out in every direction. I looked south, twenty tents, colorful, flopping in the wind. Dampness in the air, and clouds had accumulated in the short night.
The sun woke before me, cloud cover providing precious moments of extra sleep. It peeked through the clouds announcing a new day, my cell phone started a cacophony of pleasantries. It beeped, bopped, chirped, and chimed; 34 hours of pent-up technology were placed on hold. I had no phone service in Canadian waters, we just entered the United States of America. Alaskan waters, I made it.
Rubbing my eyes, I slowly came to my senses. Two days traveling north, sleep deprivation, giddy on 21 hours of sunlight. I looked at my phone Friday at 4:29 am, sixteen missed text messages, four phone calls, and 42 emails. I started with the text messages. After the third text, I answered mother nature's call and washed my…