One of the first things I noticed upon returning to Anchorage was a dish of ice cream that had been tossed out on the side of the road. The chocolate mound had rolled halfway out of its paper coldstone creamery dish and melted into the ditch as much as a sloppy, inattentive person would have dripped wax from a candle before setting the candle.

There have been other times in my life when I've seen still-frozen ice cream but there's something uniquely Alaskan about the "it's 40° and drizzling-- let's go out for ice cream!" attitude. And yes, my friends, I am American and I am speaking in °F, not celsius.