Alaska in the limelight

Well I didn't intend this to become a political blog, but being in Alaska at this time in the political arena is SO INTERESTING. By now you all should know that McCain chose Alaska's governor, Sara Palin, as his VP running mate. All of a sudden, the town of Wasilla (pop ~7,000) is on the map. This weekend, the Alaska Campaign for Change organization - Alaska's Obama supporters - opened its office here in Homer. I got to meet the one employee - the volunteer field organizer, this guy from Chicago who graduated two years ago from GWU (so we bonded over our DC background). I met him I think the day before Palin was announced, and I had to laugh a bit in my head, because being a democratic field organizer in Alaska is a hard enough job without the added surprise of having to campaign against one of Alaska's own. Poor guy. He always seems very serious too.

At any rate, Palin's candidacy is definitely topic of conversation up here. And today's latest news! That her 17 year old daughter is pregnant, hah, I bet that threw a screw in the gears of McCain's campaign. Personally, the idea that someone with essentially NO foreign policy experience whatsoever, who has been dealing with a state that has a lower population than the COUNTY I'm from in Virginia, could potentially rise to run our county (since her running mate is so freaking old), pretty much terrifies me. Although cutting to the chase, the idea of any Republican sitting in the presidency for another 4 years terrifies me. But if social issues become the factors that determine the votes this year, which happened the last time, she was probably a good choice for McCain. I for one think that social issues shouldn't be a part of governmental legislation in the first place, and thats all I'll say about that.

In other news, I've had an extremely awesome past couple of days. One of the highlights was that on Thursday I got to take a little Cessna across the bay to Nanwalek, a tiny village where we have a stream site. I've never been in a plane that small, and it was so fun! And then I got picked up by a native Alaskan, who took me to the site on his four-wheeler. And then he let me DRIVE the 4-wheeler on a lake beach! Oh my god, it was SO FUN! The stream site was right in a pink salmon spawning ground and there were fish EVERYWHERE.

Then on Saturday I saw a traditional kayak welcoming ceremony and I got to go across the bay again - one of my intern friends from Anchorage came down to visit and we knew another intern whose family is from Alaska and has a cabin over there. She took us hiking, and it couldn't have been a more beautiful day. The scenery across the bay is really beautiful - its a different ecosystem than in Homer, a temperate rain forest. Its very pine-y and mossy and so undeveloped. Its really gorgeous.