Five Instagram pics to make Lower 48 friends wish they lived in Alaska

You're basking in Alaska, surrounded by national parks, critters, breathtaking beauty. Don't let it go to waste. Impress your friends with a few well-chosen Instagram photos, and be sure to skip the details of your real life. Some suggestions:

1. Staring contemplatively at water

A pic of you staring contemplatively at water will make all of your friends in the Lower 48 super jealous they don't live here. Just don't mention the fact that you might not have a job next week, or that the tomato you just ate on your sandwich came from your kid's toy kitchen and you didn't even notice.

2. Foot selfie in mountains

A foot selfie in the mountains will tell everyone on your social media feeds that you have a ton of leisure time on your hands, and that you work to live, not the other way around. What they don't know (and don't need to know) is that you aren't working to live OR living to work because you got laid off, and now you couldn't afford fresh mint for mojitos, even if you could find it.

3. Money shot with fireweed, glacier AND mountains

No one in the Lower 48 will know that this iconic vista of Juneau's stunning Mendenhall Glacier is literally RIGHT in front of a lumber yard and a parking lot, both of which might not be here much longer if we can't get our fiscal act together. Also, they won't know the peach you're eating while standing next to a tour bus exhaust pipe in said parking lot is indistinguishable from a sponge in both taste and texture.

4. Breaching humpback whale pic

You can tell all your friends that you get to see THIS! every day, especially now that the only bright spot in Alaska's economy is ecotourism. They'll never know that your pasta dinner last night was missing basil because Fred Meyer was out of it, New Sagaya is too expensive and you're too lazy to grow any yourself.

5. Pic of you doing yoga in nature

Nothing says, "I'm communing with Alaska nature AND in the best shape EVAH, how jealous are you!?" than a pic of you twisting yourself into an impossible acro-yoga pretzel on a cliff overlooking a channel. What your friends down south do not have any reason to suspect is how close you were to ending it all right here in this very spot by just closing your eyes and plunging downward into the fjord-dotted water, much like the state's coffers. Also, that the apple you ate immediately after this pic was taken tasted exactly like it came from a display bowl at Crate & Barrel. If there was a Crate & Barrel here, which (shhh) there is not.

Libby Bakalar is a Juneau freelance writer and author of the blog One Hot Mess, from which this column is taken.