A journey of 10K+ ends with an oil change, car wash and mound of laundry :)

My last day driving started out with gerbils under the hood - the first hint of anything wrong with my car. A little power steering fluid calmed them right down and the car purred along the final miles.

I've driven the last stretch so often, that it was kind of a blur. My brain was in planning overdrive and ignoring the scenery, even though I've finally caught up with the Spring I was fleeing as I drove North.

After a wonderful night in my own bed, I'm tackling unpacking from the trip, a monster pile of mail and preparing for my interview (otherwise known as mad shopping this afternoon for an interview suit)

The trip was everything I hoped it would be. I achieved my primary goal of seeing a good cross-section of Alaska. I'm sure I will be taking some more trips there, this time concentrating on one activity or area. I saw my first (and second) bear, wolf and whale in the wild. And got a real sense of if I'd be interested in working/living in Alaska.

I also achieved my secondary and very important goal of recovering my mental energy and deciding where I want to go next in life. For the past year, I've felt very restless and dissatisfied. The coming year is going to be very demanding. I'm not certain that I'm up for it, but I'm going to give it a good, hard try.

I'm a little leery about laying out my plans, both because I really don't know if I can carry them through, and because of that "jinx" feeling. So here goes - I'm applying for nursing school, Fall 2010. I've got an amazing number of hoops I have to jump through in the meantime including relearning a whole lot of math that drained right out of my head.

I have a lot of reasons for wanting to this. For one thing, I want to spend the last 20 years of my working life doing something that makes a difference and alleviates human suffering. I'm also looking towards job security, mobility and portability. Eventually, I'm sure I will want to live someplace with beautiful nature and those places don't have jobs in my current profession.

I'm a bit nervous about basically starting over, but I figure.. one step at a time, and just chew away at the goal.

Being connected to my friends via wandering wi-fi made this trip unique in some ways. The only downside of traveling alone is sometimes you just want to say - WOW look at that to someone. Being able to post pictures and get comments gave me that connection. Thank you everyone for staying in touch.

The only thing that would have made this trip better would have been to be able to hike and kayak, but those things will come. And I've seen Denali.