Alaska 2026

Last Updated February, 27th 2025

Since the 6th grade, when I had my first crush, love has been the greatest thing I have known to exist in life. I've been blessed with a loving family, many loving friends, but it would be 30 years before I would get to marry the true love of my life. As a teenager I imagined getting married, and enjoying a lifetime of love. I imagined cuddling under blankets on a rainy day, watching a movie together. I dreamed of finding a love with someone, where we could play together, share meals, and go on adventures. I couldn't wait to get married.

Over the years, on random evening walks with my Mom, we would talk about marriage, among the other beautiful parts of life. Somewhere throughout those years, an on going joke grew between my Mom and I. It was decided under the stars, on those late night walks, that at my wedding some day, our mother-and-son dance would be celebrated to the tune, Aquarius by The 5th Dimension. While this was a fun joke, it was never taken very seriously, until one day, in a glorious knife fight, I met a beautiful women who would one day become my wife. That is another fun story, for another day though.

My wife and I met in 2015, neither of us searching for a relationship. I had plans to whore my way through Europe, while my future wife at the time told me that, marriage was an institution that enslaved women and that she never wanted to get married. Funny how life has other plans for you sometimes... We became lovers, in the most exciting definition of the word. I still went back packing through Europe, but did not pay my way, with my body. Toward the end of the trip, through fate, or destiny, or just a lot of luck, I crossed paths with my future wife in Paris, as she was headed to Thailand on her own adventure. We spent one of the most romantic weeks of our life together, in a flat overlooking Notre Dame. Our dreams had become our reality, and our souls intertwined with a joy and peace that neither of us had ever known before. Needless to say, when we both returned home, we had become one.

Over the next three years of romantic adventures and trips to Disneyland, I realized I would have to make a choice between the woman I had fallen madly in love with, and my dreams of getting married someday. Let me tell you though, it was a very easy choice. I had skipped the wedding, and went straight to sharing life with someone who I loved, and who loved me in return. I no longer needed marriage, for I was already bound to the woman that I was going to spend the rest of my life with.

Meanwhile, during those three years of romantic adventures and trips to Disneyland, my wife's thoughts about marriage were very slowly starting to change. To give you context to the rate of this change, nearly a decade, after getting married, my wife told me in passing, "Marriage is an institution that enslaves some women, but not me." It's one of my favorite ways that she has told me, I love you. Now back to those three years of when my wife and I were still young lovers, living at my parents house. I couldn't say the exact day things changed, or any specific moment that made my wife decide she wanted to get married, but I do remember there was a feeling. It was a small feeling at first, but it continued to grow along side our love. I remember telling my wife that if we ever did get married, I really wanted to be the one to propose.

Paris, France
The Summer of 2015

Carmel-By-The-Sea, California
August 2017

In August of 2017, I surprised my wife by proposing to her on the beach, at the end of the road, in Carmel-By-The-Sea. As you have probably guessed, she said yes! A year later, in June of 2018, we got married! It was a magical wedding, filled with friends, family, lion dancing, Hawaiian music, magical wands, Hindu Gods, and ancient Viking traditions. Now, you may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with going to Alaska, and where is the YouTube video of that ridiculously funny mother-son dance to Aquarius? Well, in all of the excitement of our wedding celebration, time flew past, and before I knew it, my wife and I were being whisked away on our horse-drawn carriage. The wedding was over and the band headed home. It was only in the following days, that I realized, in all of the celebration, the one dance that had been planned for longer then I had known my wife, had been forgotten. The mother-son dance to Aquarius, didn't happen.

There is no going back, when a tradition like this is missed. My wife and I are the married for life, kind-of-folk. There won't be another wedding celebration in this life time where my Mom and I will get to share that magical dance together. I've always tried to see the bright side of things, it's part of my plan to live a full and happy life. So I asked myself, how can I transform this missed tradition, into something meaningful. The answer, was to take my mom on a mother-son dance trip, and share our missed dance, on an adventure together.

My Mom and I started brainstorming ideas for an epic mother-son dance trip. We've looked at doing a Disney Cruise, but realized that was something better done with our whole family. We considered exploring Iceland together, but then the volcanoes started erupting. My mom has always wanted to see the Northern Lights, so we started looking into visiting Finland. I had visited Lapland during my backpacking trip through Europe, and it was beautiful. However, after considering the logistics and costs of a trip to Finland, during winter time, when the Northern Lights are most active, we decided something closer to home might be more feasible. For many years, my mom had also talked about wanting to visit Alaska. So, combining the two life goals my Mom has, as a mother-son adventure, made total sense. To make up our missed mother-son dance, we decided to go to Fairbanks Alaska, and dance under the Northern Lights, to Aquarius.

That is the story of how Alaska has become my next great adventure. Backpacking through Europe was a personal pilgrimage, and I didn't share many photos or stories about that trip with others. I thought this time, it might be fun to share this mother-son dance trip, with the world! I was going to share this story, when we left for Alaska, but the adventure has actually already started. Planning for a Northern Lights trip to Alaska, is nothing like any adventure I have planned before. Even in this modern era, there is not a lot of great information or resources available online, to prepare someone to take their Mom to Alaska, in the winter. I plan to change that! Over the next year, under the hashtag, Alaska, I'm going to be posting on Bohemian Tuesday, everything that I'm learning to safely visit Alaska, and to successfully see the Northern Lights with my mom! Oh, and to finally share our mother-son dance too. Can't forget that, a second time!