Squarebanks

Fairbanks is the second largest city in Alaska (and the largest in the interior).  There are about 36,000 or so people, so it's the northern-most metropolis in the US.  There are a couple of decent restaurants, as well as two fairly large breweries.  The University of Fairbanks, a large animal rescue preserve, the museum of the north, a birding paradise, botanical gardens, and the northern lights complete the highlights.  Oh, they DO have a wal-mart.

And while we will visit the breweries and the -40 below room at the museum of the north (did you know that -40 degrees F and -40 degrees C are the same?), we're really here to travel the 120 miles to the Arctic Circle.  Because we can.

On Monday (we're hoping the weather will clear up a bit) we'll take a ride in a twin-engine plane up to Coldfoot and set foot in the arctic.  Even though it's supposed to be sunny and 67, I'm glad I brought my fleece!

Aside from booking that, we didn't do much today.  I have a bit of a cold, and we're both pretty run down.  You know what a travel nazi Joe is.  But no worries!  I have NyQil, and Joe just had a tuna sandwich on rye...everybody's happy.

Off to Fairbanks!

But first, a final picture from Anchorage.

We took the Alaska Goldstar to Fairbanks...

We love trains.  Lots of scenery, usually good food and beer, friendly staff, no weight restrictions on luggage, no seatbelts...the list goes on and on.  So when we decided to extend our trip north to Denali, we learned that we could travel by train all the way up to Fairbanks - and then back to Denali.  Sold!  It’s a day-long ride, but the scenery is fabulous: forests, lakes, trumpeter swans, eagles and, hopefully, moose.

It rained most of the trip so the mountains and marshlands looked particularly wet and lush.

Turns out most of the wildlife up here hangs out around these ponds, rivers, and marshes.  There's lots of food, fresh water, and protective cover.

See that green blob in the center of the pic...just left of the two trees...about two-thirds back?  That's an abandoned beaver dam.  Beavers love to dam up rivers and streams, but once their den takes root with grasses and moss, they move out.  Ironically, they don't much like standing water.

I think these are the Talkeetna River, the Little Susitna River, and the Indian River

It’s strange - our fascination with wildlife.  Last week when we went whale watching, everyone on the boat scanned the waters for the least little sign of a whale (and you’ll recall, we were well-rewarded).  Today on the train, someone saw the butt-end of a moose darting into the woods, and the whole car whipped out cameras, stood to get a glimpse, and pointed in various directions..all to no avail...the moose was long gone.  (We are hopeful we’ll see another.)

Okay, this is like that fucking Bigfoot picture.  See the dark spot in the upper center left?  It's a mama moose running through the brush.  Behind her (and not in the picture) was her calf.  

Wildlife, by its very nature is wild.  It’s unpredictable.  It is, at once, mesmerizing and terrifying.  Wild.  And I think our domestic selves - if only for a moment - yearn to live vicariously through the beasts.

So we cross our fingers and peer into forests and visually sweep the meadows along the way to Fairbanks hoping to catch a glimpse of our wild moose selves.

And now...a blast from the past:

Look at them Moose Goosers

Ain’t they recluse?

Up in them boondocks,

Goosin’ them Moose

Goosin’ them huge Moose,

Goosin’ them tiny.

Goosin’ them meadow-moose

In they hiney.

Look at Them Moose Goosers,

Ain’t they dumb?

Some use an umbrella,

Some use a thumb.

Them obtuse Moose Goosers

Sneakin’ through the woods

Pokin’ them snoozy Moose

In they goods.

How to be a Moose Gooser?

It’ll turn ye puce!

Gitcher gooser loose and

Rouse a drowsy Moose!

- Mason Williams/Them Poems

An Anchorage Walkabout

After a full day of drinking and eating on Wednesday, we decided (well, actually our bodies decided for us) we should just take it easy today.  Very easy.  Easy like Sunday morning.  Sorry, I digress.

Last night after we got back to the room, Joe passed out and I did two loads of laundry.  I'm not kidding.  I was hoping to hold out until Fairbanks to do some laundry, but after a quick underwear/jean count it was clear that we couldn't wait.  So I sorted and Joe snored.  Sorry I don't have a picture.

This morning...well about noon...we motivated and set out to find some lunch.  We took the hotel shuttle into downtown and headed for the Captain Cook monument.  On our way, there was a noise that sounded like a multi, multi-car crash right next to us.  I don't startle easily, but this racket made me come up off the sidewalk about four inches.  It was extremely loud and incredibly close.  It was a fighter jet (from the nearby Elmendorf Air Base).  It flew over us and then - with a blast of afterburner - sped straight up into the air then took off.  WOW!!!  It really reminded me of when I was a kid in Amarillo, and we'd hear sonic booms from the jets flying out of the Amarillo Air Force Base.

A few minutes later, we spied the Blue Angels flying overhead.  Turns out they're all practicing for an airshow this coming weekend.

We found Captain Cook.  He's famous here in Anchorage, although he never actually MADE it here.  In 1776, Captain Cook set out on his third voyage - aboard his flagship “Resolution” - to find a north-west passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic. He surveyed the coast of Northwest America and Alaska, but, failing to find the passage to the Atlantic, turned south from the Bering Sea and sailed to the Sandwich Isles where, on the island of Hawaii, he was killed.

For lunch we settled in at the Slippery Salmon.  I had a reindeer dog.  Grilled, spicy, covered in chili, cheese, and sauted onions.  Sorry Santa...your reindeer are delicious!  Joe had halibut for the second day in a row; he may develop gills.

Time for a nap and one more load of laundry.  Tomorrow is a really long day.  We're taking the train up to Fairbanks.  It will be a fabulously scenic ride, but an incredibly long one.  So we'll go to bed early tonight.  That's getting harder and harder...the days are getting longer and longer.  Evidence:  here's a pic of our hotel at 8:30 pm.

Back on dry land with nothing to do...riiiigght!

Whatever shall we do?  We're off the ship.  We took a bus from Whittier to Anchorage.  And now we're on our own.  Whatever shall we do?

Well, while you're working out an answer, we're going to go drinking!

Glacier Brewing, 49th State Brewing, and Midnight Sun Brewing for starters.  I'll just leave this here for you while I go find the guest laundry room at the Marriott.

Glacier Brewing

Dandy flight!

First flight at 49th State Brewing.  And a lovely view.  They say on a clear day you can see Denali!

Gorgeous dark beer flight.  Yum!!

Alaska is so mean!

These are bacon bites.  That's right...bacon.  In cubes.  BACON.  IN CUBES.  

And crab stuffed jalapenos.

This was dessert at Midnight Sun Brewing.

BACON!

 Maybe we'll find something interesting to do tomorrow.

College Fjord - And our last day aboard

Well that was fast! And what great fun we've had!

Today was really a do-nothing day. We actually went down to breakfast, we packed, we settled up our account, we napped, we played Bingo, we worked on the balance of our beverage package, and we sailed through Prince William Sound and into College Fjord.

College fjord contains five tidewater glaciers (glaciers that terminate in water), five large valley glaciers, and dozens of smaller glaciers.  It was discovered in 1899 during the Harriman Expedition, at which time the glaciers were named. The expedition included a Harvard and an Amherst professor, and they named many of the glaciers after elite colleges: Amherst, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Harvard, Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, Wellesley, Williams, and Yale.  According to Bruce Molina, author of Alaska's Glaciers, "They took great delight in ignoring Princeton."

Gigantic. Titanic. Amazing. Brooding. Misty. Mysterious. Ancient. Cold. (Damn! it's cold!)

Tomorrow we arrive in Whittier and take a bus into Anchorage where the third phase of this trip begins.  Anchorage is all about doing laundry, mailing stuff home to lighten our load, and drinking Alaskan beer.

Glacier Bay

In 1794 when Captain George Vancouver first set eyes on the small five-mile inlet that was Glacier Bay, I'm sure he thought, "Oh holy shit!"  He described it as a "sheet of ice as far as the eye could distinguish."

There's really no place like this on earth.  Glacier Bay encompasses over 3.2 million acres of forest, inlet and shore, mountain peaks rising over 15,000 feet and, of course, glaciers...seven glaciers, including Margerie Glacier - one of Alaska's most photographed features.

This sucker is about 250 ft high above the water, and bottoms out at about 100 feet below the surface.  It looks blue because in the light spectrum, blue is most easily refracted.  When the light hits compacted ice (like a glacier), the red wavelengths are absorbed...the blue light reflects off the ice to our eyes.

Glaciers move faster than you think!  Usually about five feet a day...that's really a lot faster than I've seen some people on this cruise move.  As the ice is pushed forward in the "river" it cracks and pops causing some pieces to fall off...that's called calving.  Trouble is, you never know where or when...so we wait.

video

(Sorry, internet is hinky, and my videos won't upload to Blogger.  Good news is that the YouTube video up next right after mine shows a great shot of the glacier calving!)

Still waiting

And...

 This is the Lumplugh Glacier.  It's retreated much more than Margerie.  It's still enormous, but it doesn't really calve...ice fields have built up in front of it (think silt in the mouth of a river), so when parts of the glacier break off, they just fall onto the field instead of into the ocean.  Someday some enormous amount of pressure will cause the ice to break down enough and push it into the ocean.  Today is not that day.

I love the low-clinging clouds.

This is Johns Hopkins glacier.  It's almost gone, but you can totally see the path it's taken over time.

This glacier (Reid?) has retreated back from the shore and now sits completely on the mountain.  It just looks cold.

Tomorrow I'll be back with more glaciers and wildlife (hopefully) from our cruise of College Fjord - our last day on board...can't believe it's already over!

So Skagway

Lemme show you where Skagway is

Apparently right by my left boob.

This little town has about 1,000 people in it...except during cruise ship season, when it doubles, in order to handle the more than 900,000 tourists.  It is the gateway to the Klondike and Yukon - all those places where gold was found up here.  No gold was ever found in Skagway...that's why it's the gateway.  The name Skagway comes from a Tlingit word that means "the wind blows all the time."  Skagway is home to the White Pass & Yukon River Railroad, a narrow gauge line built specifically for the gold rush stampeders.  It was finished in 26 months...about 14 months after the gold rush was over.  There were two trails leading up the the gold fields back in 1897: the Chilkoot Pass and the White Pass.  Both were treacherous, ridiculously long, and lawless...kind of like TSA lines.

That's Skagway in the valley behind us.  You can see our ship just over Joe's head to the right.

We took an excursion that got us on the train and up to White Pass Summit...which is in Fraser, British Columbia.  The scenery is amazing...but it was so foggy, we really didn't get to see much of it.  And now we know why they call it White Pass...it's literally in the clouds and fog.

Back in the states!

After our train ride, we unleashed our inner child and went panning for gold.  Yippee!  Our claim produced about $17 worth of gold flakes.

I'm rich...I'm a happy miser.

Lunch and a beer later, we were back in Skagway and on our own.  Yep, time to shop, visit the local brewery, and soak up some of the local culture.

The historic saloon (which used to be a brothel) The Red Onion has a line of bedpans all along one wall.  I just might use this DIY decorating idea someday.

Anyone remember Rainier Beer?

Our flight at Skagway brewing.  Yummy!  

It was time to call it a day and head back to the ship.  

Later this evening I'll be back to tell you about Glacier Bay.