Alaska #10

Sunday morning and here we sit on the train getting ready to leave Fairbanks. I don’t understand exactly what is going on. We were told to be at the RR station between 7:00 and 7:30 am. Train was supposed to leave at 8:00. We got up early, had breakfast, and after our cab driver couldn’t find the train station, got there about 7:20. Currently it’s 8:34 and we’re still sitting in the station. It might have something to do with the change to daylight savings time last night. I saw a couple of official looking guys arrive at the station a little bit ago in a big rush. Saw them later putting on railroad looking uniforms. I’d be willing to bet they forgot to change their clocks. 8:37 and we’ve just departed; our scheduled arrival in Anchorage is 7:40 tonight. We secured a map of the route at the train station. They just called our rows of the car to go to the dining car for breakfast. I already ate at the motel, so I am passing on that. I ’ll have my first dining experience on the train at lunch. A little way out of town, the cruise director came on and said we were stopping to pick up some folks who forgot about daylight savings time. Apparently they got them in cars and raced the train out to a crossing somewhere. We are currently sitting in the middle of nowhere and a snow covered road.

Train travel is much less structured than the airlines. There was no security, and you can check up to 4 bags per person. The only nod they give to security is you have to show a picture ID to get your boarding pass stamped. The Alaska rail cars are clean and in pretty good repair. The seats are comfortable and recline nicely. They are not appointed, as I would expect for this day in age however. There is no table that drops down from the seat in front, and there is no power outlet where you might plug in a laptop. (I’m on battery) I always envisioned writing on the train sitting at a table looking out the window. This is sort of like that but I’ve got a laptop on my laptop. We are in the coach section of the train, and according to Jerry, there is an upgraded section when the train runs in the summer that has domed vista cars and much plusher sea ts on a second level. It costs about $100 more. They don’t offer this service in the winter.

I’m going to hook up my GPS antenna and see if I can get it to pick up from the train. Got the GPS going and it is very interesting to follow our path and see the speed and elevation changes. Too bad there is no place to plug in, the battery is going to expire long before the trip finishes. (actually found a power outlet in the rear of the car, so will be able to recharge periodically) The scenery is pretty, but in these coach cars, a lot of the time all you can see is trees. Sometimes the trees thin and you can see the mountains in the distance. Walking around on the train is quite a challenge. It reminds me of the one cruise ship I was on when it was very rough. Moving between the cars is especially exciting. You can see the rails below and hear the wheels at work. At the back of our car, they have the tops of the two-piece doors open. I almost lost my hat when I went back the re. If you hold onto your hat you can look out and see the train ahead or behind. But boy is it cold with a 50 mph wind in your face.

We came through the village of Nenana where they hold the Nenana Ice Classic. They build a wooden tripod on the ice in the river, and people all over Alaska bet on when it will move downstream to the auto bridge. This means the ice is moving out of the river in the spring. It costs $2.50 to bet, and last year a few folks split a $350,000 pot. I think I’ll find a place in Anchorage for Vickie to bet. As we continue south, the scenery is unbelievable. We passed Glitter Gulch near Denali National Park. Glitter Gulch is where all the big hotels are for visitors to Denali. All of the cruise lines have big hotels there. It has a Quizno’s and 2 traffic lights now. Jerry said in the summer it is wall-to-wall tourists. Also in the summer Rt. 3, which runs along the railroad, is wall-to-wall RVs. We were not able to see Mt.McKinley (called by the natives Denali) as clouds obscured it. We were able to see many other mountains, however, and this has to be one of the prettiest places in the US during the winter.

I have decided we’re going to live in Alaska in the winter and our place in Mexico during spring and fall. The rest of the year we’ll just freeload with our kids. (when we’re not traveling) I don’t believe you can take this train ride and not fall in love with Alaska. The white mountains contrasting with the blue sky and green trees are a continuous panorama passing the train car window. Alaska is writer’s heaven. I have not even finished yesterday’s episode about our aurora borealis adventure the night before last. Seems like I just can’t get it all down.

We just took a break to the dining car for dunch (a late lunch combined with an early dinner). Vickie had a Caesar salad, Brenda had the Healey Miner’s lunch, (a pretty good burger) Jerry and I had the Engineers Special. The Engineer’s special was pot roast slow cooked on top of the diesel engine all the way from Fairbanks served with brown gravy and some steamed vegetables. We all shared a berry delight for desert. Vickie and Brenda both got cool bottles of water that say Alaska Railroad on them and are in special commerative bottles. The food was very good, and eating it with the winter Alaskan scenery going by was beyond great. We retired back to our seats after dunch with the possibility of a nap for all lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the train.

After some napping, sightseeing and wandering around, we are approaching Anchorage. The track coming in to Anchorage must be newly rebuilt. It varied quite a bit from what was on my GPS (sharp curves and jogs gone) and we attained the highest speed of the trip here, 62 mph. When we arrived in Anchorage, we reclaimed our luggage and relocated to the Fairfield Inn for the night. We are off to Seward in the morning.

Later---this morning I heard from dad. The biopsy reports are pretty much what we expected. The mass they removed was cancerous and the cancer has spread to his liver. About 15% of the liver is currently involved, and they give him the same year or so prognosis. He feels good, and is back to eating. He will be going home soon, and Dr. says he can probably resume a normal life for as long as he can. We’ll take it day by day and see what happens. More later.

Wes

Alaska #9

It’s Saturday night and we’re back to Fairbanks at the Comfort Inn. The last day or so was really interesting. Yesterday we got up and had a big breakfast at the restaurant at Chena Hot Springs. After breakfast, we got our suits, and hung out in the hot swimming lake for a while. Brenda had signed up to go on a dog sled ride around lunchtime. We walked over to the dog sled area, and were met with an unbelievable sight. About 60 dogs, each with it’s own house and tie up chain. Brenda made friends with the dogs and driver and went off on her adventure. The dogs all went crazy when the sled was prepared. They all wanted to run. As soon as the sled left, they all got quiet. Brenda and the driver went out through the 2-mile course and returned from the other side of the dog compound. As soon as they got back all the dogs again went into plaid thinking something was going to happen.

After the dog sled ride we took some downtime to prepare for the Aurora viewing event starting at 10:00 in the evening. We got moving again to go on our tour of the Ice Museum at 5 pm. We met in front of the building and were escorted inside. The whole interior of the building is ice sculptures many of them over 3 years old. There is a huge intricate sculpture of two knights jousting. There is also a complete chess set in ice with figures 2-3 feet high. All the figures are modeled after animals of the Alaskan wildlife. There is an ice wedding chapel, and they report there have been over 50 weddings held there. On the far end of the building are 4 bedrooms complete with ice beds covered with furs. You can rent these “rooms” for $575 per night. Coming back the other side is an ice igloo with table and chairs inside. The acoustics are purported to be excellent inside. I tested it b y singing a couple of the songs from my repertory. On the same side as the igloo is a bar where they serve their signature appletini drinks in ice carved glasses. We had signed up for those so we landed at the bar on fur covered ice stools. We had our drinks and toasted the adventure.

After the tour, we went back and got ready for dinner. Once again, we dined at the Chena Resort. The food was again very good. Jerry had a smoked salmon penne in cheese and cream sauce that was excellent. After dinner, I think naps were had all around. At about 9:30 we donned our cold weather gear and prepared for our aurora adventure. We arrived in front of the activities building at 9:50 as required. It was a large group, and we were split into smaller groups to ride in the sno coaches. The sno coaches were tracked ATV kind of vehicles with a trailer of sorts that held 10 people. Another 3 or 4 could fit in the cab with the driver. We ended up with 6 folks in our trailer, which gave us a little room to spread out.

The caravan of 4 Sno Coaches headed out up the mountain for our destination. The ride was unbelievably rough. I likened it to being in a combination of blender and vibrator. Since the resort had not had any snow for a while and had been subject to the same 40-degree temps the track was mostly ice. If we had been riding on 6 inches of new powder the ride probably would have been quiet and smooth. The trip to the top of the mountain took about 30 minutes and was very steep along the way. When we got to the top they let us out and we found our yurt. The yurt was a round canvas structure with two propane heaters and two propane lights. It was pretty well sealed off from the wind, and they had hot water going for tea, coffee, hot chocolate etc. The temp at the top of the mountain was probably in the 20’s and the wind was blowing quite hard.

We all did pretty well with our cold weather gear. According to the guides, a couple of weeks ago it was 40 below outside with the wind blowing. They said it never got above –20 inside the yurt with the heat running. They could hardly get the water hot enough for coffee. We spent the next 3 hours looking for the aurora. As the time went by and it was not spotted, everyone became discouraged. I was enjoying the solitude of sitting outside watching the sky in the cold and biting wind. I decided that if I did some Alaskan chanting perhaps the aurora would appear. I chanted for a while, and low and behold, the aurora appeared.

When I thought I saw it, I called Vickie through the canvas wall of the yurt. There was a group of Japanese tourists with us on the mountain. Several of them were sitting inside against the wall waiting for the aurora to appear. When my disembodied voice appeared through the wall of the yurt, it frightened one of the Japanese girls so much she ran to the other side of the hut. Not only could she not understand English but it came after her through the wall. Vickie tried to explain it was me, but to no avail. As the aurora intensified Jerry went in and told the folks waiting it out in the yurt. All of a sudden I heard this huge commotion as all the waiters stampeded outside to see the finally appearing show. The Japanese folks insisted on trying to take flash pictures of the aurora. All they succeeded in doing was blinding everyone. Soon they figured out they were getting picture s of nothing and quit. Jerry used his new camera on a tripod with a timed exposure and got some good pictures of what we saw. We watched the ghostly lights for about 45 minutes, and then it was time to head back. We loaded up into our sno coaches, and were scrambled all the way back down the mountain.

An interesting aside. While we were awaiting the aurora on the mountaintop, Jerry and Vickie got to talking to one of the guides. She was married to another guide. Together they had 2 children. They lived even further out than the resort and had a house with no TV, no satellite, no phone, no newspapers, no indoor plumbing, and a 45 to guard from bears on the way to the outhouse. They had a generator they ran part time, and spent most of what they made on fuel to heat their house. The girl told Jerry she left the lower 48 in 98 and hadn’t been back since. Jerry mentioned that if Hillary won the election, we all might be moving to Alaska. To this the girl replied “Is SHE running?” She hadn’t a clue about the election. We are finding the Alaskans are really a different sort, very self reliant, and fiercely independent. They love the life here, and most have little interest of ever returning to the US mainland.

After the aurora viewing, we finally were back in our rooms around 3:30 am. We all crashed, and the next morning packed up for the return trip to Fairbanks. Checking out of Chena was complicated by their technically challenged staff, and Jerry and I will be straightening out our bills on our own later. On the trip back to Fairbanks, we saw several moose and other game. One of the moose was quite tame and spent some time posing for us to take his picture. They sure are big and funny looking. Tomorrow we’re off for the train back to Anchorage. More later.

Wes

Alaska #8

It’s Friday morning, and the last 24 hours have been very interesting. We packed up everything yesterday and moved out of the Comfort Inn. We headed out of Fairbanks for Chena Hot Springs on the Seward Highway. Along the way we made a quick detour to see the last remaining gold dredge in Alaska. Dredge #8 as it is called is along the highway just past the pipeline viewing area. It was last operational in the late 60’s and was parked the last place it worked. Gold dredges were about the size of a large tugboat and used metal buckets about the size of a lawn tractor on a chain that dug up the gold bearing gravel for processing.

After that we headed out the Chena Springs road toward the resort. The road follows the Chena River the whole way and it is about 60 miles of narrow 2 lane with virtually nothing on it. We saw 2 moose along side the road while traveling. They were in the forest but we were able to stop and take some pictures. We arrived at the resort and checked in. We went directly to the activities center to sign up for the things we wanted to do. There was a Renewable Energy Tour at 6 pm and we signed up for that. We also signed up for a Snow Coach Aurora Tour the following night. We unloaded our stuff from the car and moved into our rooms.

The resort is nice. Not fancy or plush, but very nice. All the staff folks we have come in contact with so far are very accommodating and pleasant. While moving in I noticed our smoke alarm was chirping from a low battery. I called and promptly a maintenance guy came and replaced the battery. He was a young guy, and he told us he was on duty 24/7 from November to April. All the kids here work pretty much full time since there really isn’t anything else to do. The boy at the front desk said it was a great place to work and save money for college. He worked, watched DVD’s, and saved his money. We met a couple other staff folks later in the lounge while we were waiting for a dinner table and they spent a little of their money on adult beverages.

We had dinner at the lodge restaurant, as it is the only game in town. The menu was not extensive but had several interesting selections on it. The prices were pretty much comparable with what we had seen in Fairbanks. A little high by lower 48 standards, but considering Alaska imports 90% of its food, not ridiculous. Jerry had a salmon entrée, Brenda had a dinner salad, and Vickie had a bowl of vegetable soup. I had a duck salad with orange vinaigrette. All of the food was great. More later about the food.

Prior to dinner, Jerry and I went on what was called the Renewable Energy Tour (link to their renewable energy info website). It was purported to be a tour of the geothermal energy sources, green houses, and cooling for the Ice Museum. The young girl who took us on the tour was a Stanford Engineering Master’s grad. She was working here for some experience. She started the tour by explaining how the resort was situated. It sits on a geothermal heat source that produces 165-degree water. They pump water down into an 800 foot well, and get it back hot coming up another 800 foot well. That’s how they heat the spa pools, hot tubs, and outdoor swimming pond. But she also went on to explain this facility was unique in that they produced all their own electricity geothermically. Especially interesting was this is the only facility to produce electricity from a low temperature geothermal source. Most other geothermal sites have 212+ degree water to work with so they can use normal steam electricity production equipment.

This is where the tour really got interesting. It seems they, in concert with a University and Carrier AC Company, have pioneered a turbine generator that runs essentially on the temperature difference between 165-degree water and the outside air. The really interesting thing is the colder it gets the more efficient the whole thing is. (-20 degree outside temperature makes it work real well) What they are doing is using sort of a reverse heat pump powered by the hot water. They boil R134 refrigerant and use it to turn a 15000-RPM turbine that turns a generator through reduction gears. Then they use the cold outside air to condense the R134 for another trip. In the summer they use cold ground water for the cooling and then pump it down the geothermal well. Because they are reusing the same water all the time, they don’t deplete the aquifer. They are producing 250 kW of electricit y (they have two 250 kW units side by side) with an installation about the size of a truck trailer. Neat thing is it is totally modular and uses many off the shelf commercial air conditioning components. What’s very cool is there are limitless applications where this process can be used to produce electricity from waste heat. (like at big electrical plants with giant cooling towers) Adding these modular generators to use the waste heat from the cooling towers could improve the efficiency of existing power plants by many percent. (translation—a bunch more electricity for same amount of fuel burned) In addition the same units can be used to produce electricity from what the oil industry calls stripper wells. These are oil wells where they inject hot water into the ground to bring up the residual oil that will not flow on it’s own. There are only about a zillion of these stripper wells operating.

The tour then went on to show us the greenhouse operation. It is heated by circulating the hot water through pipes in the concrete slab. It has withstood temperature differentials of 74 degrees inside and –54 degrees outside. They grow everything hydroponically, and the various lettuces they were growing were incredible. (hence the concentration on salads at dinner I mentioned earlier) They have a tomato room where she said they had harvested 6500 pounds of tomatoes before they had to replace the vines. Some of the vines were 90 feet long weaving back and forth across the room. Then we moved on to the chiller for the Ice Museum.

The Ice Museum (originally called an Ice Hotel) is a huge structure made up completely of ice. We have a tour of that scheduled for later today. It takes a lot of refrigeration to keep it from melting in temperatures that can get to 90 degrees here in the summer. At this point the guide talked about how things had been in the past at this resort. A series of owners had gone out of business due to the energy costs. Prior to the geothermic project, since they are 30 miles from the nearest electrical grid, it cost $1000 a day in diesel fuel to produce electricity for the resort. In addition it took another $700 a day to keep the Ice Museum from melting. (and this was when diesel was $2.00 per gal rather than $3.50 like now) Now they keep the Ice Museum from melting and maintain a 20-degree year round interior temp with a little ammonia adiabatic system that would fit in the back of your pickup truck. They use the geothermal heat to boil the ammonia to power the thing. They use the waste heat removed from the ice structure to either heat the resort or store in a ground loop. It is an amazingly simple and efficient system. They are getting ready to start up a hydrogen production facility that will take surplus electrical energy from their geothermal generators, and produced hydrogen by electrolysis to mix with their existing propane system and save them thousands a year on propane. Due to the efficiency of all the energy stuff they are doing, this resort is now financially viable, and prospering after years of decay. Jerry and I can only imagine what it will be like in 10 years.

So here we are, in the middle of nowhere in Alaska. But what did we find? We found cutting edge energy technology that is primarily the brainchild of a guy named Bernie Karl. He and his wife bought the resort from the state of Alaska in 1998, and have turned it around completely. In addition, they have folks coming from all over the world to see how the geothermal system operates. I felt like I had been beamed up by aliens and shown technology that could only exist in the far future. I can see modular 250 kW or 500 kW or even bigger electrical generators operating environmentally friendly, with no carbon discharge, all over the world. All of a sudden I don’t have such a gloomy view of us hurtling down a tunnel to energy doom. If this type of stuff can be going on by one visionary guy and his staff in the middle of nowhere Alaska, then there is hope for us all. As our guide put i t, you don’t burn the oil for fuel, you use it to make the invaluable products that can come from it. (plastics, chemicals, etc. etc) And I added, and oh yea, you send Venezuela or the Arabs (who all hate us) less $$$ every month.

After dinner, we rounded up our suits, and headed for the spa. We changed cloths in the locker rooms provided, and made the 22 foot outdoor walk (at about 20 degrees) to the spa swimming pond. The pond is rimmed with granite rocks, and has a coarse sand bottom. It is lit with a few scattered colored lights and the steam rising from the hot water creates an alluring, relaxing aura. The water is about 103 degrees, and is much hotter in areas where the feed water flows in. We spent at lest half an hour in the very interesting environment of 20-degree air and 100 plus water. After that, everyone was well relaxed, and we headed back to our very comfy beds.

Tomorrow, we are going to explore more of the interesting things Chena Hot Springs has to offer. More later.

Wes

Alaska #6

So far we have had no luck seeing the aurora borealis. It’s been cloudy and the aurora activity has been low. We are hoping this changes when we move to Chenna Hotsprings later this week. Yesterday morning, we headed for North Pole Alaska to go to the Santa Land that is there. We found it after some searching, but it is only open Sat. and Sun. in the winter. We took pictures of it and the reindeer penned behind. North Pole is very quaint in that almost everything is Santa like. They even had a St. Nicholas Catholic Church. We did visit the North Pole, Alaska United States Post Office where Santa sends and receives all of his mail. We plan to return on Saturday to partake of the Santa scene.

After the North Pole adventure we spent some time exploring Fairbanks. It is a small sort of dreary city this time of year. All the snow along the roads is black and dirty. Also, there is a big abandoned hotel right in the middle of downtown, just down the street from a new Marriott. They built a big new courthouse, but the old one stands ill used with space for rent signs in the windows. We went by the Visitors Information center, and picked up some literature.

We then went to an art type store advertising 40% off on any dog art. Jerry parked out front since the signs along the street said 2 hr parking. I went in for a while, but am having trouble going into stores when dressed for the outside. I rapidly overheat. I went for a walk down the street which is when I discovered the abandoned hotel I mentioned. Along the way I met a little fellow who was marking the tires of various cars, enforcing the 2 hr parking. He seemed pleasant. I watched him write a ticket for a car parked in a no parking zone after which he snapped a photo of the crime scene. When I got back to where we parked, I saw a parking ticket on our windshield. I looked, and the whole street we were parked on was 2 hr parking except for a little space in front of a loading door. It was marked 30 minute parking for loading. I got Jerry, and we scoped the situation out. It was crazy cause we could have parked anywhere on the stree t. The art storekeeper overheard the conversation, and said she’d see what she could do about it. Seems like the storeowner was someone important. She talked to someone, and got the $40 ticket reduced to a “Stern Warning”. “You tell them when they are in the loading zone, they are supposed to have their flashers on”. Later while strolling around further, I discovered many more tickets. Apparently the young fellow was very zealous about his job, and Fairbanks is serious about their parking laws. Seems a little odd this time of the year when the streets are largely bare of actual folks parking.

After the art store, we went to see the mushers’ museum. For some unknown reason it was closed, Tuesday only, this week. We moved on to see the ice sculpture museum, and it was closed. It’s closed during the ice sculpting competition. We headed for the Artic Treasures Gift Shop and it was open. This was cool cause we had 10% off certificates. We found Vickie a nice Alaska fleece top with matching hat. I got a big floppy Alaska hat, and we found really cool windbreakers for the Vette. We have been looking for windbreakers that would stuff into a little pouch to keep in the back of the Vette for impromptu roof down times. Of all places to find them, in Alaska, and on sale. We had a nice lunch of soup and sandwich at the Fudge Pot, which sells food, coffee, gifts, and fudge.

After lunch we headed out of town to the pipeline viewing location along the highway north of Fairbanks. In this location you can walk right under the pipeline, touch it, take pictures with it, and read information about it. We really enjoyed actually experiencing something we’d heard about for years. After the pipeline, we rode further north on the highway just to see the scenery. This particular highway turns to gravel 56 miles outside the city. We didn’t go that far. The rental car companies around here specifically forbid venturing on to the gravel highways. This is a little crazy however due to the penchant they have for spreading gravel all over the roads for traction on the ice. We decided it does make sense though cause they can’t use salt due to the very low temperatures.

When we got back to town, we went to the Alaska Bowl Company the girls had read about. This is a little manufacturing company that makes all sorts of wooden bowls and stuff out of native birch. We watched them cutting out bowls and finishing them. We decided we really didn’t need any bowls however since a set of 3 was around $200 and we’d have to ship them home. After that we went to Pioneer Park where I wanted to see the restored steamboat from the early days of Alaska. Well it was closed also, but we were able to see the steamboat and Warren G. Harding’s rail car. Seems like Fairbanks is sort of closed for the winter. We headed to our final stop, called Santa’s Smokehouse. This is a place where they smoke, sell, and ship salmon and other meats. It was open! We went in and sampled their various products. We bought a pack of smoked chum salmon strips for dinner, and took a price sheet to see if we might want to ship some home before we left. We then headed back to the motel and had a nice dinner of smoked salmon, fruit, cheese, veggies and dip. We turned in leaving again a wake up call if the aurora appeared. More later.

Wes

Alaska #5

Yesterday was moving day. We packed up everything, loaded it in the car and headed off to the airport. We stopped buy the Post Office on the way to mail some stuff home. Parcel Post from here to home was reported to be 5-6 weeks. According to the USPS guy the stuff has to go by barge to a mail center in the lower 48 then via truck to Virginia. Some will have to wait a while for their Alaska gifts.

Since we were on Alaska Air for our flight to Fairbanks we got to go to the “New Terminal” in Anchorage. It is a monument to the “pork” (Alaska legislators are famous for). Seems as though the travel force was with us yesterday, but just a hair out of sync with our universe. We arrived safely in Fairbanks so all was well, but along the way weirdness abounded. We got to the new Taj Mahal terminal only to be told the computer system was down and we’d have to check in at customer service. But by the time Jerry got back from returning the SUV, the computers were up and working. We got to security and my usual strip search to get through the checkpoint was compounded by having a new TSA guy in training, so I got to be a guinea pig. I told him I was good training material since I was an experienced searchee. I got through security, thanked the TSA folks, and was now cleared for flight.

This terminal has a real weirdness I’ve never seen before. Their gate numbering system starts with zero. So you have Gate C0 which makes perfect sense in the computer world, but I can see some 70 and 80-year-old folks scratching their heads over it. We landed at our Gate C4 and sat looking out the window watching the parade of freight planes go by. Anchorage must be the refueling and crew change hub for every airfreight flight in the Pacific. I never saw so many huge planes in one place. While we were sitting there Jerry informed me that you can Google the tail numbers of airplanes and find out when they were built along with their history. There were two Alaska Air 737-400’s sitting at the gate so I checked them out. Turns out one of them was “The Spirit of Alaska” the first 737-400 ever delivered to Alaska Air 15 years ago. Even the air crew, who were standing nearby waiting to get on our plane, didn’t know that.

We boarded our plane and got all settled. The door closed and we waited for them to back out but it didn’t happen. Then they opened the door back up and a whole bunch of folks got on. They must have waited for a connecting flight. We finally pushed back and got ready to take off. It was dreadfully hot in the plane but I figured it would cool off after we took off. Well it never did. Folks were shucking winter clothes like a stripper convention. It was a short flight over incredibly scenic landscape, your basic snow covered wilderness.

We arrived in Fairbanks, in our hot plane, and taxied up to the gate. The plane stopped and everyone got up like they always do. Only problem---no one went anywhere. They had jet way problems and couldn’t get it up to the side of the plane. The pilot came on and said we might have to move the plane. After what seemed like 15 minutes, they finally got the door open and we got off.

We headed down to the rental car area to find 6 or 8 rental car counters. Only thing was the one we were using was the only one that had any customers and the line there was eight deep. Seems like the other rental car companies might need to examine their marketing for Fairbanks. We finally got our car and headed for the parking lot. The air was crisp and cold and the snow crunched underfoot. It was interesting that the rental contract had a big warning to be sure and unplug your rental car before leaving. When we left, the rental car thermometer said –8 but it was off about 10 or 15 degrees to the cold side. Temp was really in the mid teens.

We found our motel, which is right beside the ice carving competition. We could see some of the carvings as we drove in and are very excited to go and see them up close. We checked in at the motel and for some reason they had Vickie and I set up to be in a king Jacuzzi suite. We didn’t understand it, but weren’t about to complain. We found our room and it was really great—very big. This is nice cause it gives the 4 of us a great place to hang out. Jerry, Brenda, and I went to the Safeway and stocked up on groceries. We had a little relaxation hour and headed off to the Pump House for dinner. The Pump House was a giant pumping station that supplied water to the gold dredges back in the 20’s. Miss Vickie had reindeer for dinner, which is actually caribou according to the Pump House menu, and it was quite tasty.

When we returned from dinner Vickie called the front desk for an Aurora Borealis wake up call. They offer this service so a late night/early morning viewing is available. We surely do not want to miss an opportunity to see the northern lights!

We figured out later why they gave us the room upgrade---it’s haunted. Inside the walls there is this creaking and groaning from the heating system that goes on continuously. Also, periodically the clock radio makes this Morse code like faint buzzing noise. But the bed was good and we slept wonderfully. Had biscuits and gravy on the continental menu this morning along with waffles and Danish. Very nice.

Today we are off to explore Fairbanks. More later.