Talked to my sister tonight. She is here in Kaktovik, AK, otherwise known as the end of the earth.
I was telling a neighbor about her adventures up there, about how she is working with the Inupiat/Eskimo/Inuit children (Not sure which word is correct...) and about how she is about to embark on a 2 week solo bike ride across the wild northern lands of Alaska to Fairbanks.
He looked at me with great puzzlement. "You two are related?" He asked. "Are you sure about that?" (Me, who thinks that a trip to Banana Republic without my credit card is roughing it.)
It's funny how two people can grow up with the same parents, in the same house, go to the same schools, have the same pets, be the same gender and practically the same age and turn out so fantastically different. (Although, I did listen with great interest to last weekend's "This American Life Switched At Birth" - I suppose anything is possible.)
I often blame the difference on my own two kids on gender. But I suspect that's just an excuse - an easy thing to pick out.
I'm scouring the map looking for actual roads between Kaktovik and Fairbanks. I don't see any roads - nothing that even resembles a road, really. How exactly, does one bike when there are no roads?
I stuck my fingers in my ears and started singing "la la la" when she was telling me about the cute polar bears. Polar Bears are cute on National Geographic videos. Not live and in person.
The kids, however, are enthralled. Can you imagine anything on earth cooler than an aunt with a life like that?
2 comments:
One of Dan's brothers hiked the entire Appalachian trail. Another did a missionary stint somewhere in Africa that can hardly be found on a map. Yet another biked across Alaska.
Dan's idea of roughing it is watching a Packers game without a Coors Light.
My boys are excited to have such cool uncles. Someday they'll appreciate having a Dad who is a professional musician... but not yet!
I can see this happening with my two, later in life. The younger one is fearless and already kind of an adrenaline junkie; the older one likes a nice movie.
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