We are in Alaska now for almost a month and we are now in Fairbanks, almost at the most northern point we will get. It has been quite an experience so far. Life is certainly different here from what we are used to. I cannot explain it, but we like it ... a lot. The alaskans are no-nonsense people. They will tell you what they think ... really and they will help you if you need help. They will invite you in their homes. To give you an example, we met a family on the ferry. They were originally from Chicago but moved to Juneau 20+ years ago. They were on their way to their cottage in Haines. After talking to them about life in general and what is important they asked us if we would be interested in staying with them in their cottage...The scenery...
Is awesome if you can see it ! What the tourbooks and its pictures don't tell you is that it rains quite a lot in alaska. And if it doesn't rain, it tends to be often cloudy, masking most of the beauty. We have met many people that flew in from the lower 48 and stayed in Alaska for a week or so but didnt see much of the awesome scenery. We have the luck that we can stay longer at a place if needed and get to see what we came out to see :-) The tourbooks also speak of "sensory overload". First we didnt get it, now we do (how can you get an overload of natural beauty), but i have to admit once you have seen 10 spectacular glaciers on a highway, the 11th is "whatever".
The wildlife
Is everywhere. We have spotted most of the wildlife while on the campground or in the car, not while hiking. The news even reported that bears made a presence in downtown Anchorage.
The roads....
Are sometimes a challenge. We drove part of the alaska highway (we will drive all of it on our way back), but this was an experience i never forget. Several of the roads are suffering from what is called permafrost (look it up ). These roads force you to slow down to a very slow speed. Note that this can go on for 100 miles. We have seen people on the road who's hitches broke off the car after the travel-trailer jumped in the air. Let's cross our fingers for the way back.
All that daylight ...
There is a lot of light here. It gets dark at around midnight and the light is back at around 5am. This is great as you have long evenings, on the downside, the kids tend to wake up quite early, if you know what i mean. We decided to darken their bedroom windows and that works !
The 110 Volt powerplugs on the cars:
All the cars here have 110 Volt powerplugs sticking out of the hood. Also, many parking lots have 110 Volt power outlets on each parking space. At first we didnt know why, but one of the alaskans explained it to us. The winters get so cold here (-50 degree) that the engine needs to stay sufficiently warm when you shut it off. In other words, if you go for groceries in winter time at -50 outside, your car-engine needs to stay warm when you are inside. If you forget to hookup the car to the electricity it will not take you home. I wonder what happens if a power-outage occurs..
The outlets also work in the summer as i hooked up my trailer to one of them to make some coffee :-)
The pictures ...
We lost quite a number of pictures as my SD card appears to have become unreadable/corrupt. This happened of course at one of the most scenic places. Still, we have quite a number of nice pictures. Take a look at these wildlife and glacier pictures ...
Take care.
