The End of the Line

Hi, Everyone:

Well, we've hit the end of the line.  The clerkship has ended, Tammy is in DC already in classes for her MBA, and Steve leaves Anchorage on Sunday.  Our Alaska adventure has (at least temporarily) come to a close.  We made it all the way from one moose:

To another:

Obviously, this year has been one of momentous excitement for us.  We got engaged.  We were finally able to spend a significant amount of time together.  We got to do stuff we love together, like hiking, kayaking, camping, and just watching TV on the couch.  We both made some amazing friends who opened our eyes to new experiences and interests.  And we both found jobs that we loved and that kept us excited, thinking, and helped us further develop our career goals.  All in all, this year was a success.

Of course, it wouldn't have been possible without the love and support of everyone in Alaska, at home in Michigan, and elsewhere.  Our great appreciation extends to the Justices of the Alaska Supreme Court and their families, the court system staff, the Camp Fire staff, Steve's co-clerks, and all the other amazing people we have met throughout the year.

Of course, we also could not have done this without the encouragement of our families, both the Rams and the Hurvitzs, for standing by us in our decision to travel far and away.

And last, but certainly not least, thank you to all of you out there who took the time to read the blog throughout the year.  Hopefully it provided at least some entertainment, or at least a distraction from your work.  We've kept track of our readership and here are some interesting stats:

• We had readers in 36 different counties, including: the US, Ecuador, Canada, Brazil, Israel, France, the UK, Germany, India, Russia, Taiwan, Australia, Japan, Mexico, Italy, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Spain, Turkey, Lithuania, Switzerland, Ukraine, Argentina, China, Poland, Georgia, Finland, and Belarus.

• Of our US readership, the blog was read in 44/50 states (only Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Maine were missed).   However, we may have miscounted, so let us know if you were reading from there!

• Although we can't get an exact number of "hits" because of our own views, the blog has been seen 5,121 times by 1,689 absolute unique IP addresses.

• Most of our readership found the blog through facebook or gchat statuses.  But some found it through searching for different keywords in search engines.  Most of those were terms you'd expect like: "moosespotting" or "Tammy and Steve Alaska."  But some came to us through more interesting searches like: "alaska fur bikini contest 2011;" "alaska the bucket list;" cold tem dashboard;" "al roker alaska kodiak;" and, of course, "amazing engagement cakes." (Thanks again, Elena!)

Now that we're moving (or moved) to DC, I think we'll close down the blog for a bit.  While it's been fun keeping this up throughout the year, it seems a bit strange to continue blogging about DC life under a title of "moosespotting."  With that said, maybe we'll pick up the blog again in the next few months, or maybe we'll come back to Alaska sometime and can restart the moosespotting adventures.

Either way, thank you for all your support and reading throughout the year.  Here's to what the future brings.

Forever grateful for this opportunity,

Tammy and Steve