With apologies to John McPhee,

we've come in to the country. We arrived in Whittier, Alaska on the ferry on July 26th, and have been on the go since. On that first day, we:

• drove to Anchorage
  
• had breakfast at Snow City (details below)
  
• got both of our driver licenses
  
• got an expensive smog test for the car
  
• registered the car
  
• got library cards
  
• got J on the request list at the library for Harry Potter
  
• went to Elmendorf and got a base sticker for the car
  
• and got our health care switched over and PCM teams assigned
  
• and checked out the commissary
  
• 'checked in' to the B&B we're staying at for the month
  

It was a busy day.

We've now been in town a week, and J has been busy with meet and greets for her new job. In the meantime, we've gone to the home inspection for the house we're under contract for, and submitted a list of request repairs to the sellers. If all goes well, we close on the 27th.

I've been to the commissary twice, due to the VERY cheap prices, especially on the small but nice selection of organic produce, and excellent prices on fake-meat products.

Today we went out for a medical appointment for J, and checked out the "for sale" lot, and the (free to us!) recreation/fitness center. A free swimming pool! Yay!

Also over the weekend, we bought a Jeep Liberty. Ugh. It's an SUV, but getting in and out of our driveway in the winter will actually require legitimate 4WD. We are both sickened by the crappy gas mileage (18/23) but it's truly a winter vehicle only, and the bad mileage will help keep us honest honest on that.

I just called and got a dentist, and have an appointment for Monday morning. First thing Monday morning, like 6:45am, I drop off J at the airport to fly to Nome for the week, then go straight to the Jeep dealership to have the optional undercoating installed (sprayed on?) I then have a dentist appointment at 10am. Busy day ahead there, too.

And in the next hour, I need to go drop off some DVDs at the library, and then pick up the tickets we bought a month ago for tonight's sold-out Indigo Girls show at the Bear Tooth First Tap.