Alaska! ooops! And sorry for not having gotten back when I thought I would... wife returned from Europe last night so... had some catching up to do. Anyway, my opinion still stands as it was. Perhaps even more so knowing that you're in a rush. It's never good to make such an important purchase in haste.
There are so many great options out there right now, but you first have to figure a few things out. Those things include:
Size/portability
ruggedness/durability
whether this is more hobby or will perhaps take it further etc..
Some of the new mirrorless cameras are amazing, but fall short with the amount of lenses they offer. Well, autofocus lenses that is. Most of them are able to mount an adapter for use with really amazing manual focus lenses. I personally prefer manual focus for anything personal I do, other than studio work of course. Even then, I sometimes prefer manual.
I'd give very serious consideration to the Sony NEX 5N, the Olympus EP-3 and maybe even the new Fuji X10 (little brother of the X100, though the X100 is definitely a better camera).
The Sony NEX 7 is a better camera than the 5N where controls and ease of use are concerned, but slightly worse with high ISO noise. Though slightly really is ever so slight, especially if you've got Lightroom which can get rid of high ISO noise like a champ, without sacrificing detail. Only thing about the Sony camera's is that the lenses aren't all there yet in abundance. The M 4/3rds camera's have better offerings right now.
I'm not a fan of ANY of the new Nikon mirrorless models. They're overpriced IMO, for what they offer. Plus the sensor size is proprietary and thus, a new system is born, requiring yet more proprietary lenses. And as you can imagine, there are really very little being offered right now. There are more Sony ones in this regard.
At some point I'm probably going to get one of the Sony's or maybe the Olympus. Hard decision to make right now.
Then of course, there's DSLR's. Plenty of room for discussion there, so first you should decide on the form factor you're looking for, and then we can take this a bit farther.
Doug