The day has finally arrived!

Day one: June 20, 2008

Karen is taking me along with her on a fabulous trip to Alaska. I've tried not to think about it for months because I'd never be able to think of anything else but this is it. It's finally here. Slept some – so excited! Made my granola last night for the long, provisionless plane trip. I was so tired that I couldn’t remember what I’d packed, so I unpacked twice before setting out. Argh!

Got to the airport on time but didn’t have my luggage properly balanced for walking through the corridors. Finally figured it out after we got to the airport in Seattle.

The trip out was beautiful – clear weather, interesting terrain below. This pic looks like clouds, I know, but it's actually the Rocky Mountains. (Click on it to see it full size.) I was assigned an aisle seat but there was no one else in my row, so I sat staring out the window and taking pictures for most of the 5 hours and 20-some minutes, occasionally glancing at the two movies they showed on the little screens hanging from the overhead sections. The first one was Definitely Maybe - I think. I don’t know what the second one was. Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey and buried treasure. Was parched and the fabulous Farook kept me supplied with water. He said I’d had one and a half of those large (two liter?) bottles by the end of the flight and I sloshed my way onto the gangway.

Seattle/Tacoma (Sea-Tac) Airport sits in the shadow of Mount Rainier. Just beautiful. And the whole area is very green. The airport is small and the old section has wooden floors. They have bronzish fish inlaid into the other floors. Very cute.

The flight was punctuated by musical outbursts from a May Palmer, an outspoken former Rhode Islander who was going to sing for the troops in Fairbanks. She and Karen talked the entire three hours. I tried to sleep.

The hotel was about five minutes from the airport. Serviceable, with wireless access in all of the rooms. Had dinner under the scariest chandelier ever. We're in Alaska!! I can't believe it.



I took pictures out of our sunny hotel window at 9:30pm, 3:30am and 7:50am Alaska time. The Weather Channel said sunset was around 12:30am and sunrise around 2:50. I have to check that tomorrow.

Our take-along bags that we didn’t want to lug had to be outside our room for pickup by 7am to be brought to the next stop, so we had to be pretty much ready to go by then. Not exactly relaxing.

Day Two: June 21, 2008 – Fairbanks

Took Karen’s advice and stayed up as late as I could to get acclimated to local time. Unfortunately, she didn’t take it and woke me up at 4:45am after I’d fallen asleep around 10pm. At least we were up in plenty of time to be packed for our 7am baggage pick up. We left for our Discovery Riverboat tour along the Chena River at 8am and it was slow and entertaining and lovely on a sunny, 82-degree day. (Who knew I'd get sunburned in Alaska?) Fairbanks has the broadest temperature range in practically the entire state - down to 60 below zero in winter and well into the 90's in summer. We saw scenery, sled dogs, fish skinning, costume making and old hunting structures. Susan Butcher, the famous three-year consecutive Iditarod winner, lived here. Her husband, Bill Munson, and daughter, Jessie, showed us the dogs and talked about raising, training and living with them. When there's no snow, they run the dogs around a mile-long dirt track pulling Bill on a quad with the engine removed to take the place of a sled. I took a cute portrait of Cobra, who was very excited to see us. We also saw Dixie Alexander, who skinned a salmon with warp speed and does the most amazing skin and beadwork. Her costumes are on display nationally, including at the Smithsonian. She said it takes 6 to 7 months to complete one, not counting the tanning. She was amazing. Our guides were two Alaska University students, Rebecca and Ida. Rebecca is an Athabascan Indian (that's her posing in the handmade parka with the sunburst hood) and Ida is a Yupik Eskimo. I wanted to take a picture of them together but Rebecca was off somewhere, so I got Ida and Liz, instead. Liz is also an Athabascan Indian, from a town of 100 people about 500 miles away. The temperature continued to rise and by the time we got off the boat, it was well over 80 degrees. Just like home. I couldn't believe it. This is the summer soltice, the longest day of the year. It's a very big deal in a place where the sun doesn't shine at all for months at a time. There was a street fair in Fairbanks proper and there were various celebrations planned under the midnight sun, which, of course, we would have to miss. We had another three hours on a coach to Denali National Park (on which the driver talked non-stop about the history, government, schools, his family, etc.), where we're staying at the largest hotel in the entire state of Alaska – the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge. Nine hundred rooms in several buildings scattered over a complex shaped like a hilly figure eight right next to the Chulitna River. The scenery is fantastic – almost impossible to believe. I may replace yesterday's sunshine pics because it's so much more amazing here. Poor Fairbanks.