I could totally live here forever.

I seriously LOVE Alaska. I cannot even put into words how much I love it here. I know, I know.. "just wait until winter." The thing is, I don't think I'm going to change my mind. I've felt as low as -19 degrees since I've been here, and yeah, it was cold.. even hard to breathe cold. But I LIKE the cold. One of my biggest problems with living in California is my allergy to the sun. For those of you who don't know, I seriously can only be out in direct sunlight for like 15 minutes before I feel like my skin is frying off. It's extremely painful, and VERY annoying. Going to the beach is a freaking EVENT because I have to prepare so much ahead of time.. and even fully prepared, more than say three hours at the beach (even with an umbrella) leaves me totally dehydrated and uncomfortable. I've made myself very, VERY sick in the past by trying to pretend I could be like everybody else. Not so much. At least here, because the weather is cold, I can cover up comfortably. I even have beanies with visors so I don't have to worry about my face (which is generally the only thing NOT covered). Most people can't even begin to understand the freedom I feel out here. And to be honest, it's more than freedom from sun poisoning. This whole place is just.. FREEING. Standing in the woods on awesome bridge trails with no one else around and complete silence for the first time made me feel like I could BREATHE. I get almost claustrophobic in highly populated areas. I did not realize how much I missed not feeling like walls and people were pressing in on me all the time.

On a whole other note, snow is really noisy. The weather has started slowly climbing upwards (today it was 42!) which means all the snow is melting. And it's LOUD.. like continuous rain sometimes, except not nearly as relaxing. I have decided that I really like the way hard snow sounds and feels under my boots. It makes me happy. I'm just waiting for the big ice break to happen. People out here all turn in forms betting on when the large, frozen body of water is finally going to crack. They make bets down to the SECOND. It's crazy. And apparently, the noise is deafening. I can just see me going into cardiac arrest because it happens while Dan is at work and I'm all alone. Good times.