Sarah Palin's Alaska, Episode #1 : Rock Climber Or Rock Star?

Whether or not Sarah Palin decides to take on the pressure cooker horror of making a run for the Presidency of the United States in 2012, Sarah Palin's Alaska is still a series worth watching. And then some. The first episode just aired (November 14, 2010), and I was glued to the screen. The TV screen, not the computer screen...and that's saying something.

During the first few minutes of the program, I never even thought about grabbing the digital camera. Literal screen shots aren't much, but when you're talking about Moon Man McGuiness, brown bears arguing over territory with each other and the Palins' fishing boat, even teenager Willow Palin and her boyfriend trying to sneak upstairs to hang out without Mom seeing (but not succeeding)...hey, that's good theatre any way you shoot it!

Not that politics was completely missing. Now we know that when we see Sarah talking to this or that Fox News host from her home in Wasilla...it's literally from her home in Wasilla. The studio engineer? Todd Palin, of course.

Who else?

 One of the coolest things about the Palin home in Wasilla (with its 14-foot fence blocking literary hit-hack McGinniss far more effectively than anything on our southern border blocks illegal immigrants) is the way their back yard terminates at lakeside.  When they want to hail a taxi, it's out to the dock and load themselves into the chartered floatplane piloted by one of Alaska's gazillion bush pilots.

Man, that looks awesome.  I'd consider moving to Alaska and learning to fly one of those floatplanes myself...if my single flying lesson in mild weather at Brown Field in San Diego, years back, hadn't turned me greener than Obama's so-called "clean" energy policy. 

Todd and Sarah decided to fly to Denali National Park, do a little glacier-hiking and then some rock climbing on the lower slopes of Mt. McKinley.  Teenager Willow, unsurprisingly, took advantage to drop out after inclement weather forced the floatplane's pilot to turn around the first day.  When her parents headed out again the next morning, her back was suddenly hurting and she "didn't feel so good". 

Sound familiar?  If you're either a parent or a child, it does!

With their single guide and climbing mentor, they made it across the glacier unscathed--but then Sarah Palin had to face one of her greatest fears: Heights. As she was conquering that fear, bit by little difficult bit, the obvious question was:

How the heck did the film crew get their equipment into place ahead of her?

Of course, there could be a really simple answer. Like an easy trail to the top from another direction entirely.

Naturally, Todd Palin waited until Sarah completed her climb....then promptly scampered up that crumbling face like he was part mountain goat. A large part. Hey, both Palins are lifetime athletes. With that in mind, how many men do you know who could resist a chance to both show off and show up his spouse in one swell foop? Not that it mattered. What did matter: Sarah's acknowledgement after the climb that,

"I don't think I've been that challenged and that scared in a long time." (Certainly not in a mere slime-slinging political campaign; smear attacks from the Left simply can't compare with the imminent likelihood of falling into a thousand-foot-deep crevasse in a field of ice or having a cliffside just plain crumble out from under your feet.)

Then there's the scenery. Nowhere on Earth has more majestic scenery than Alaska. Let's hope at least a few of those screen shots didn't blur too badly.

Seven more episodes left to air...and I already know this series is going to end far too quickly. I've already learned something new, too: TLC (where the Sarah Palin's Alaska series airs) is on Channel 280 for us.

I'm ticked off at DirecTV these days for a number of programming idiocies...but for bringing this show to us in living color, the company can be forgiven quite a bit.

Oh, wow! They're running the show again! Gotta see if I can snag a bear-shot this time! Later, dudes and dudettes!

 Okay!  I did get some bear-shots!  Now, be back after they've gone through a bit of editing...at least if one or two came through....

Ready?

Both Willow and Piper Palin were present in the boat to watch the bears fight at close range. On the way back home, Piper summed up the day by saying (with bright eyes) that if they had something like that to do and see every day, they wouldn't even care about TV or movies. They wouldn't need such things.

All in all, watching this first episode of Sarah Palin's Alaska was more than enough to drive home a point: The Palins and Alaska are one. If Sarah does indeed decide to run for President in 2012, it will put her entire family's life on hold and under exponentially elevated attack levels for years to come--many years, should she in fact win two terms in the White House. The Beltway subsistence existence many professional politicians and other city dwellers consider the finest possible way of life will be literal torture for people who truly understand the meaning of freedom like Todd and Sarah Palin do.

Yet it's entirely possible she will run because of her intense love for not only Alaska but for the entire United States of America. Which in turn means that if she does, she'll need all the understanding and support at every level that We the People can provide...just to survive the experience relatively unscathed.

Let's hope it's enough.