Tuesday July 4– Day 32 of trip – drive to Fairbanks
Drove the last 205 miles up to Fairbanks, which is Alaska’s
2nd largest town by population at about 200k folks. Saw two moose on the way in, and really
expected to see more. Fairbanks is our northernmost destination, and
ironically, the only place that we’ve run the camper AC since leaving TX.
One observation on travel corridors up here, is that in
addition to the two lane blacktops connecting each road, there will be a pair
of 4 wheeler tracks on the side of the road…… ON BOTH SIDES of the road.
Apparently, taking your 4 wheeler or dirt bike to town is so common that they
need to have dedicated lanes to allow for efficient travel in each direction.
Alas, it works. I saw several 4 wheelers
and one dude on a dirt bike utilizing these trails today, and was again, jealous
of the locals. Riding a KTM 450 to the
office would be just fine by me. J
In short order, Erik and Shane went to “scout” the Chena
River, which runs right behind Riverview Campground, which is where we’re
staying.
This river is the planned location for our “High Adventure”
trip with the kids, and everyone (save the mothers, who…… ironically aren’t
going) has been very much looking forward to it. Kids have been speculating and
planning for months, and us dads have been looking forward to it too. So the truth is, to me this High Adventure event
is absolutely what this larger (AK) trip is about. Getting out of your comfort
zone, entering into some measured volume of “unknown” and dealing with it,
whatever “it” is. Cause you know what life is?
Life is one big assed High Adventure trip of unknown duration. You never know when aunt Lulu is going to
die, or when you’re going to blow out a knee playing football, or you lose your
job, or have a flat tire, or your spreadsheet will crash, or you don’t have
food in the pantry for dinner, or whatever. The key here is, Stuff (life) Happens,
and you have to respond. You need to be somewhat prepared for the array of
possibilities, and when something goes wrong, you have to deal with it. If at
all possible, you ought to try and make it a good time when it does. Well, Erik
and I are both big believers in “High Adventure”. As kids, we were both given more
responsibility than we probably should have been, and to a large extent, I
believe that’s what’s made us think we could go on this AK journey. Sane people
don’t do this. Smart people don’t do this. Just those wacko “High Adventure”
types. Well…. Sign me up, Jack, cause I don’t want my headstone to read “here
lies Shane… a man of no surprises”. One
item to be clear on, though, is that we planned, prepared, budgeted and didn’t
attack until we believed we could make it happen with success. We didn’t decide
to go in April. We decided to go in
2009. We just didn’t leave til 8 years
later….
Rant over, or at least suspended……..
Back to the Chena….. The river flows at a medium pace, with
good, but not over the top flow. Doesn’t
look dangerous, doesn’t look boring, either. The river runs (mostly) along a
stretch of highway, so it’s easy to get back to civilization, should something
unexpected (ie swamping….. take place).
We have two canoes and one “portaboat” (check this out on youtube or
google “port-a-boat”…… it’s a boat that folds down into about 4” of space) to
carry the 7 of us. That puts Shane,
Amanda, and Travis in one canoe, Erik and Luke in the portaboat, and Matt and
Victoria in the other canoe.
As a real bonus, we discovered that there is a “hot springs”
type location just about 6 miles up the road from the dropoff point, so once
Deanna and Lilly see us off, they can go up the road a bit and get a massage
from a guy named Sven in his Alaska-Tarzan outfit.
Back at camp, an extended planning session was held to
figure out a meal plan, packing list, review of expectations, etc. Comical to
hear some of the questions from newbie canoers…… “What about showers? What about charging the Ipad?”, etc. Hah!!
While the men planned the river rafting trip, the ladies and
Luke headed to “North Pole, AK”, which is just down the road to a place called
“Santa Claus House”. Among other things
to see there, was a sign board with local weather info. The record high, ever, on July 4th
in North Pole, was 90 degrees. Today the
sun came up at 3:21am and went down at 12:29am. That’s right, 21 hours and 8
minutes for length of day. How ‘bout THEM apples? Less than 3 hours of darkness. And really, it feels like less. Ironically, I brought half a dozen
flashlights, and two “light ropes” to help keep the campsite illuminated at
night. Indeed, I suspect if my campsite neighbors saw me setting up those light
ropes and plugging them in, I’d be tarred and feathered before Matlock got
wrapped up. J
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