"The morning of her departure dawned clear and bright..."

Nome gave us a beautiful send off, with vivid clouds broiling in the eastern sky over the Bering Sea.

It feels peculiar to be back in Ohio. ("Peculiar", by the way, is a word I never use in speech, but I write it. Go figure.) Nome had very much started to feel like home, and I miss it.
I realized that even with my month home in August, I've been in Alaska six months out of the past year! Settling back into life here feels strange. No matter how different I feel from who I was when I left, how many changes have occurred in my life since my absence, how many things I've learned and places I've seen and people I've met and come to love, home will probably always be here with the same familiarity. Home, and Grandma's house. :)
Random thoughts in my mind since I came home:

• Wadsworth feels really, really big. You have to drive for quite a while, comparatively, to get anywhere.
• I cooked with beef for the first time in months today. It smells very different from moose or musk ox. A lot more grease, too.
• I only saw one 4-wheeler in town, and no snow machines!
  
• Where does mom keep the sugar again? And the salt? And the mugs?
• It's really, really quiet around here.
• I have a veracious appetite for Indian food.
• I'm SO glad there's snow here too. :) (And sick of Ohioans complaining about it. You guys are sissies!)