Saturday night, Alaska.

Uuuuugghhhhh....Kids.

Woke up early this AM after spending most of the night out with Tom, riding along with him for a shift as an Alaska State Trooper.
I was definitely impressed with his gig up here. He has a nice new take-home cruiser with more high-tech toys than Batman, and his squadmates at the post impressed me as the sort of cops that my old agency used to hire back when it actually did police work. These cops are motivated and squared away and I'd think twice about doing wrong up here. But apparently they've done the job too well, because we could not find any significant crime going on to suppress.
Seriously, I was kind of hoping for a couple of high-speed pursuits, maybe a shoot-out, or at least a decent bar fight to break up...but all we got despite putting 200 miles on his car were a couple of calls to the homes of people unable to manage their own lives without calling 911 to handle their minor dramas, a homeless guy who claimed to be a former Navy SEAL, and one idiot driving an unregistered, unlicensed SUV stupidly who tried to claim that it didn't need to be registered or insured because it was his "ATV". He got stroked with a $500 ticket that put six points on his license. We were treated to an excellent display of the Aurora Borealis around midnight and drove up into the hills to watch the light show for a bit, and then we tried to dip into a pursuit that North Pole P.D. had going on but North Pole lost the guy before the real cops (the Troopers) could get there to catch the guy for them. Maybe next time.
We finally ended the shift without a single shot being fired or even a simple arrest, so now I'm skeptical of his claims that bad things actually happen in Alaska. We would up back at his place at 3AM eating frozen White Castles, and after a few hours of sleep, his kids were thoughtful enough to wake us up because kids just have to make noise in the morning, bless their little souls.

This is already feeling like it's going to be a long day. But hey--I'm here so it's all good.

PS--Everyone please visit Misty's blog here and post comments telling her to blog about this visit and all the other interesting stuff that goes on up here. She keeps forgetting to update her otherwise wonderful blog about Alaskan life from the newbie point of view. Maybe if enough people prod her...