Travels with Samantha Slide Show Page 13

by Philip Greenspun

My time at Katmai was drawing to a close

[BIG]

[BIG] and I waited on the beach for the floatplane,

[BIG] but I would never forget the majesty of the bears

[BIG].

Anchorage may be a tougher place for nonconformists than the rest of Alaska. I'd met more lesbians in a few weeks in Alaska than in over a decade hanging around Cambridge, home of Our Bodies, Ourselves. They either said they were attracted by the tolerant spirit here or complained that they'd been repelled by the men. Yet I met a 22-year-old who'd been pushed out of her job here as a legal secretary after three days. Rumors of her lesbian tendencies surfaced, based on her lack of make-up and choice of "severe" navy and white rather than pastel colors.

"I'm physically attracted to both men and women, but time and time again I've put my faith in men and they turned out to be jerks."

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I left Anchorage as quickly as I could, finding beauty just an hour south of the city at Portage Lake

[BIG] fed by Portage Glacier

[BIG] and filled with icebergs

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I spent the cruise on the open top deck chatting with Mike, a 46-year-old Harrison Ford lookalike crewmember. He'd spent some years at U.C. Davis studying ecology, but left to play basketball in a minor league in France, leaving his wife behind in Davis to work. Absence did not make her heart grow fonder and she abandoned him spiritually as he had her geographically. Mike stopped in Anchorage en route to playing more basketball in Australia. He met the woman of his dreams there and stayed to raise two children in Girdwood, population 1600.

"I worked for awhile as a paramedic in Anchorage. Someone with a year's training can earn $100,000/year with a bit of overtime. But I didn't like the pace of the city and the hours so I moved my family back to Girdwood."

Despite his multiple careers, countries, and companions, Mike looked less worn out than most of my friends in their early 30's.

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