A Special Day Indeed! A Dream Come True!

I have much to share about what our travels have included in the past three weeks since my last log.  We have been traveling Canada and our electronic communications have been spotty at best - and costly.   But now we are in the good 'ol USA.   I am writing this log from the North Pole, Alaska.  Yep.  Just a few miles outside of Fairbanks; sitting in my lazy boy chair, computer on lap, shades pulled down, dad sleeping on the fold down couch, and I am listening to the rain beat on the skylight in our little kitchen.  You know that today, June 21st, is the longest daylight day of the year, but you would not know that Fairbanks daylight hours are especially long since we are so far north, 21 hours and 29 minutes.   That is a far cry from the opposite end of the spectrum on December 21st when there is only 3 hours and 42 minutes of sunlight.   I have never experienced such a thing as waking up at 1:30 AM and having my wife go outside to take a pictures of the horizon sunset, which seems to never end until the early morning sunrise.   I have wanted to go to Fairbanks since I first travel north to Canada when I was 17.  Forty years later, I got my wish.   I envisioned a place on the edge of civilization, perhaps with a few conveniences, but a lot of wilderness nearby.  To my surprise, we landed on a freeway and soon learned that there are nearly 97,000 people that live in the Fairbanks Borough (County).

Later this week I hope to record for you some of the highlights of our last three weeks -our drive through northern British Columbia and the Yukon Territory, crossing the Yukon River on the ferry, to our experience driving on the Top of the World Highway between Dawson City Yukon to Chicken AK and Tok.

Tomorrow we plan to visit Fairbanks, the Botanical Gardens and the University Natural History Museum, where a 34,000 year old Pre-ice-age Steppe Bison is preserved as if it were killed yesterday.  Later in the week, we plan to ride a Sternwheeler up the River or take an equally interesting excursion into the inland.

One last item for this posting.   At one of our scenic stops overlooking a vast river delta perhaps two miles in width, a couple pulls up on their bicycles.   The couple is from Germany and they have cycled from Anchorage to Fairbanks and now heading to the Yukon and Northwest Territories until heading south, a two year cycling adventure which will land them eventually in Argentina.  I thought I was and adventurist driving my truck and pulling my house behind it.   What a world we live in.   -Kevin