Summer in Talkeetna: The Mountain

The first two days here have been perfectly sunny and clear, which means that Mt. McKinley, confusingly nicknamed Denali (also the name of a national park, and an adjacent state park, and more than a few dogs) is in full view.

Which is special. I heard someone say today there is a thirty percent chance of seeing the mountain in the summertime; then I heard someone else say, a few hours later, that only thirty people out of a hundred who visit the area are able to see the mountain.

I think those are two separate concepts, but I took Statistics way back in the summer of 2004 so luckily I'm not tempted/able to walk up to these people with my index finger out saying, Actually... I learned in elementary school that's exactly how you don't make friends.

Although. The other day my mom told me that the reason the taste of New York pizza is impossible to replicate elsewhere is the tap water in the dough. And it made me want to be friends with her. But then it's not like she corrected me after I confidently told a roomful of people that the taste of New York pizza is impossible to replicate because they cry into the dough. (They do, though.)

SO YEAH. Mount McKinley. I could worry that my camera blah blah doesn't do panoramic blah blah isn't fantastic jibber jabber clang clang... or, I could just show you the pictures I took of it, and if you want to see something more espectacular, do a Google image search.

OH. Espectacular reminds me that today during sexual harassment training I sat next to someone named Saber. I wanted to have a conversation about his name for like two hours before I finally said, "Did you take Spanish in high school?" He said yes. He just graduated high school. I said, "It's so cool that in Spanish your name means to know." He laughed. He said kids teased him when he was little and called him Light Saber. He said his parents named him after the species of tiger.

I have met people here from Pennsylvania, Kansas, Mississippi and Texas, and I have noticed accents, speech patterns, frequently used slang from all of them, and love it, but it would be rude of me to make a list on the internet of all the ways they talk funny.