Northern Exposure

Alaska sure is a pretty place. I don't know why I've never been here before...

And because we cruise tomorrow and because we forgot some key items, Elizabeth and I had to catch a cab to the downtown area.

Elizabeth was nervous. Elizabeth is not adventurous. Elizabeth was out of her comfort zone. But I wasn't. I'm a world traveler and was appreciating that the Kahle family was finally going someplace they had never been before. We haven't done that in a LONG time.

So Liz and I take the hotel shuttle to the local grocery store looking for a new cane for Rick. Somewhere along the line in the day's events, I managed to lose Rick's. I'm pretty sure it's still at the security checkpoint at LAX, but who knows. So, off we go, in the shuttle, to the grocery store. Nope, there's no canes there. And I never thought there would be... but the gal at the front desk of our hotel thought differently.

Once there, and once we see that we needed to go elsewhere, we called for a taxi to take us across town to the WalMart. The taxi driver - a big, burly, local black man - drove us willingly to the WalMart, all the while explaining that we should NEVER have been in THAT store.

Uh oh.

So much for letting Elizabeth soak up some local color.

Apparently the store we just exited was in the ghetto. Apparently we didn't know that. Apparently we should be glad we escaped with our lives.

I love Alaska. It's everything I'm not. And then some.
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