Dramamine is at the top of the packing list

Aaaaaaaand....home. Yay!

As much as I love to travel, I also love that I love coming home. Woodhaven is a very relaxing, deep-breathing sort of place to me. Well, aside from refrigerators that stop working and require replacement immediately upon return home. Yeah, that was fun.

At least it made the piles of laundry seem less daunting

As much as we travel, there are only a handful of places that we return to with any frequency. Yosemite was our first repeat, visited annually for our anniversary. Several years ago, that trip got replaced with a much more proximate quaint-town-on-the-Oregon-coast tradition.

We also now meet up with friends most years in Walla Walla for a weekend of wine fun. And we find ourselves in Kauai every few years as much for the sun as the Puka Dogs.

I'm thinking Alaska might be inching its way onto our "We Need a Break and Don't Want to Do a Lot of Research" travel list. Although we have only been twice now, last week I found myself making comments like "Next time I am going to come with a plan to buy some of those earrings" and "Before our next trip, I will spend some time on Trip Advisor so we don't find ourselves in this disappointing cafe yet again."

Rob and I talked about our next trip to Alaska in much the same way that we started talking about marriage after only a few months of dating: a foregone conclusion that the most fundamental decision had been made already and now we just need to figure out the details.

So why Alaska?

Well, it helps that it is relatively close to Woodhaven and we can cruise there without using an airport. And it helps that the seemingly best way to see its highlights is by cruise. My back likes that a lot.

But more than the convenience, Alaska is just jaw-droppingly beautiful. In its sum, it is unlike any other place I have visited. It has big skies like Montana...only bigger. It has fjords like New Zealand...only more meandering and mysterious. It has wildlife like Yellowstone and Monterey Bay...only completely randomly with an unshakable sense that in Alaska it is by the animals' graciousness and distain for unnatural fibers that they allow us on their turf.

We don't know when our next Alaska cruise will be. We're still debating ports and ship size and which summer month to try next. But I have saved my packing list and plan to keep it handy for whenever the mood and the next "HOT DEAL! ACT FAST!" temptation hits our mailbox. And I am determined to find a place to get a decent sandwich in Ketchikan.

Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau