Yeah, it can be cold but the scenery is beautiful, the remoteness keeps the asshole quotient low (especially outside Anchorage), there's no state income tax, you get money from oil royalties, you get the opportunity to live your life on your own terms, and you get more sex than any other state in the country. Not a surprise because, as one friend put it, there are three things to do up here: fish, fight, and fuck. And in the winter, we don't fish quite as much.
Originally Posted by Easy 6:
Alaska is incredible, I often regret leaving
The outdoors activities and beauty have no peer, the summers are nice and warm and southern Alaska is shockingly mild in winter as compared to Fairbanks, where I was
And as frozenchief mentions, the oil money added to your tax return every year is definitely a nice bonus... its used to be $1000 per head in the household in the early 90s, has it gone up since then, frozen?
Dang, it looks like it was $3,284 in 2022. And no state income tax. I might go parka shopping tonight.
Originally Posted by Easy 6:
Alaska is incredible, I often regret leaving
The outdoors activities and beauty have no peer, the summers are nice and warm and southern Alaska is shockingly mild in winter as compared to Fairbanks, where I was
And as frozenchief mentions, the oil money added to your tax return every year is definitely a nice bonus... its used to be $1000 per head in the household in the early 90s, has it gone up since then, frozen?
I spent a summer in the late 80's living out of my car in Alaska.
It was great.
It wasn't the cold that worried me. It was the darkness.
Anchorage was still pretty light outside at midnight for the Fourth of July fireworks.
The flip side of that it is still going to be pretty dark around noon six months later.
And as noted the guy gal ratio was noticeably skewed. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Chief Pagan:
I spent a summer in the late 80's living out of my car in Alaska.
It was great.
It wasn't the cold that worried me. It was the darkness.
Anchorage was still pretty light outside at midnight for the Fourth of July fireworks.
The flip side of that it is still going to be pretty dark around noon six months later.
And as noted the guy gal ratio was noticeably skewed.
The guy/gal ratio has settled down a bit. The ratio is the most imbalanced of any state, but it’s about 51% male or so to 49% female now. There’s an old saying: the Arctic favors men and dogs and kills women and horses and there is some truth to that.
The dark does get to you. January and the first part of February are bad. Oddly, November and December, also dark months, aren’t so bad. I think it’s because of the holidays. So, you do what most good Alaskans do: go to Hawaii. You can tell the Alaskans in Hawaii in January because they are so pasty white you need sunglasses. This time of year, though, brings its own challenges. When the sun never really sets, it can be hard to sleep. Sounds great until you get 4 hours of sleep for about 3 weeks in a row and you start associating colors with various sounds.
Mosquitos can be bad but you learn to live with them. Deet is your friend.
What I love, though, is not just the wilderness or the experiences, although those count. Service’s poem The Spell of the Yukon fits me to a T. No, it’s generally the people. They’re independent and individualist, particularly the farther you get from Anchorage. I’ve lived here for 25 years and after this time, I don’t know if I’m really fit to live elsewhere. This place is as much a state of mind as it is a state. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Bwana:
When I was living up there for a year, back in the 80's, there wasn't much talent in the ladies department. I went fishing up there about 10 years ago and the talent level was up. Fast forward, I was up there a couple of weeks ago for work for 10 days and the talent level seems to have subsided again and the derelict levels have increased. I stayed at the downtown Hilton and it was hard to walk to my rental, without getting hit up for cash.
I was only in Anchorage for 4 of the 10 days and Hit Humpy's one night for dinner and the Glacier Brew house for the rest. I also spent one night in Kenai, to call on the refinery and some local machine shops, then ventured up the road to Homer, to see that again and downed a couple of cold ones at the Salty Dawg. A bunch of my time was spent flying out of Prudhoe Bay via helicopters, to remote gas facilities. Overall, it was a pretty good adventure.
I couldn't even eat a third of this.
Humpy's challenges you to eat:
4 LBS OF ALASKAN KING CRAB
7 CRAB NUGGETS
14 INCHES OF REINDEER SAUSAGE
SIDE DISHES
OUR FAMOUS WILD BERRY CRISP
ICE CREAM
Originally Posted by neech:
I couldn't even eat a third of this.
Humpy's challenges you to eat:
4 LBS OF ALASKAN KING CRAB
7 CRAB NUGGETS
14 INCHES OF REINDEER SAUSAGE
SIDE DISHES
OUR FAMOUS WILD BERRY CRISP
ICE CREAM
365.00
The night I was in there, I had halibut and a couple of beers, I didn't see the Jethro Bodine sized meal on the menu. I did have crab one night at the Glacier Brewhouse https://www.glacierbrewhouse.com/ and it was $129.95. Crab is like orange gold these days. [Reply]
