We Get Lucky Again

Thursday - September 4, 2014

We wake up and head over to the main lodge for food.  Yum!  Lori had told us that breakfast was around 9 - so we set off by 8:50 am to walk over.  It's so freaking cold!  When we reached the lodge, we noticed that the puddle outside had frozen over.  I've never seen a frozen puddle before (yes, naive little me from Southern California where we cry when it hits 60).  

yes, we took a picture.  We've never seen a frozen puddle before!

When we walked in, there was only another elderly couple there.  The coffee, juice, milk, hot water and a selection of teas were out.  There were also bagels, assorted bread, pastries, yogurts, and a bowl of cut fruit.  A toaster and microwave are also on the buffet for guest use.  My favorite?  They brought out a bottle of Sriracha!  Oh, my beloved Sriracha - I love it so much my mama brought a mini bottle for me so I don't suffer from withdrawals during our travels.  My brother worships at the altar of Tabasco, which was also brought out for him, so we were both happy campers.  Once we sat down with our coffee and bagels the hot foods came out - fluffy scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, bacon and sausage patties.  It was all so good.  Lori is really a phenomenal cook.  Even my parents, who don't like American breakfasts for the most part really enjoyed the food.  We've looked forward to breakfast every morning :)

We had 1 pm reservations to do a Segway tour of Fairbanks so after breakfast we went back and napped until noon.  We drove the 20 miles down the mountain (a scenic drive) and met up with our guide from EcoSeg Alaska at the Morris Thompson Visitor's Center.  Our guide's name was Kuba and he was a cool mellow guy.  He's from Fairbanks, but goes to school in Portland, so this is his summer job before he returns to school for the year.  He was super chill, and since all of us have Segwayed before, the training portion was super fast and over with quickly.  He took us all over Fairbanks.  He had a good grasp of history and fun facts and we had a good time.  Now granted, Fairbanks scenery and history isn't nearly as pretty or spectacular as that of Paris, but we had fun on the Segways.  We saw all the major monuments, he gave us the history of the first Catholic church, the Chena River, places to see, historic buildings, etc.  

the first Catholic church.  They had actually moved it across the Chena river using logs in the winter so it could be closer to the hospital on the other side of the river where the clergy also worked.  

"First Unknown Family" statue - dedicated to the Inuit people of Fairbanks

Barnette's Landing: where the founder of Fairbanks debarked from a riverboat and founded the city

apparently tourists like to ride this angry fish and get their photos taken in Pioneer Park.  We didn't want to ride the angry fish, but I thought it looked funny.

Riverboat Nenana.  It's apparently a museum, but had already closed for the season when we went :(

The Harding Rail car, which President Warren G. Harding apparently traveled to Fairbanks in.

I actually quite enjoyed Pioneer Park.  Yes, it was a little hokey, but I liked that they were actively trying to preserve parts of their history with the mining stuff (I don't know the real names for any of the gold rush thingys.  Which is sad since we had to learn about the gold rush in school growing up in California).  I actually really enjoyed the old buildings they moved over to the park rather than demolishing them.    It felt kind of like the ghost town in Knott's Berry Farm...except real.  Well, kinda real.

This was not in Pioneer Park, but it's the Masonic Temple, on the steps which President Harding gave a speech.  It was picked because it looked the most "presidential" with its pillars.

At the end of the tour we had some extra time, and because we had the cross country tires on our Segways Kuba showed us how to ride up and down hills - then gave us a bunch of time to ride all over the park where we looped around on the grass going up and down the hills as fast as we could.  Overall, it was a good time - we were oriented to the city, learned some of the history, and had a lot of fun zooming around.  However, I was freeeeezing.  Instead of wearing my hiking shoes, I had on my flimsy Nikes and cotton socks instead of my wool socks because I mistakenly thought that it wouldn't be that cold since the sun was out.  Uh...no.  My long sleeved shirt, scarf, hoodie and gloves were insufficient to insulate me from the wind.  By the end of our tour I couldn't feel my toes anymore.  Brrrr!  

After our tour, we set out to find lunch.  Raymond wanted pho, my mom wanted Korean tofu and I just wanted food.  So we settled on Japanese and went to Irashai, conveniently located next to Walmart - our next stop!  We walked in around 3:30 pm, so the lunch menu wasn't available anymore but we ordered a stone bibimbap for my mom (yes, she got Korean food at a Japanese restaurant) and three rolls.  They gave us complimentary miso soups when we walked in and the best part - HOT TOWELS.  They felt soooo good because we were soooo cold.  We wiped our hands and I held mine up to my face because it felt so good.  The food was pretty good.  Pricey, which we expected (I've never paid $18 for a sushi roll before, but it was good, and we were on vacation which we all know means we treat money like it's Monopoly money), but the three rolls ended up being plenty of food for the three of us and we all left warm, full and satisfied.

This is the only sushi restaurant I've ever been to that had crystal chandeliers.  Fancy.  

The Boulder Roll.  I don't remember what was in it, but it was hot. And tasty.

We can't remember the name of the roll, it may be the Fairbanks roll, but we could be totally pulling that out of our butts.  But we were in agreement that this was the best one...shrimp tempura and scallops.  And other tasty delicious things we can't remember anymore.

The Las Vegas Roll.  This had cooked salmon, cream cheese and avocado - deep fried.

Then we wandered around the stores...which really aren't different from our stores at home.  We wandered around the Walmart and I got Walmart envy.  I always get Walmart envy when I go to out of state Walmarts since the ones we have in California are so dirty and cramped and just crappy overall.  My favorite one was in the boonies of Arizona.  The one in Fairbanks is also very nice.  We wandered around Walmart, to Fred Meyer (my new favorite store.  It has EVERYTHING) before we headed back up the mountain.

My mama made dinner (the perks of having a kitchen) and we had a seafood vermicelli dish.  Good stuff.  I'm generally not a soupy kind of person, but it's always good when it's cold outside.

I was pooped out and sacked out for a nap in anticipation of staying up late to see the aurora.  The reports were pretty good for the night and the skies were pretty clear, so we were optimistic.  While I was sleeping, my family went out to watch the sunset.

We head out once the aurora cams indicate there's auroral activity - all bundled up, we settle in for a show.  Well, as much as you can settle in when it's crazy old outside and you didn't drag out any chairs.  We have 3 3-legged camp chairs, but those aren't really comfortable, so they can't be used for long.  For over an hour we see relatively low level lights - the glow, and some subtle streaks. My parent keep waiting for the dancing, and I keep telling them that the dancing doesn't always happen and we should be happy we see anything at all.  

It got pretty quiet.  So quiet I tried my hand at taking pictures of stars by setting the exposure time to 30 seconds instead the 15 I was playing with.  Yeah...not so much.  But at least I tried.  

Then I decided to take a picture of the moon.  Because I'm retarded.  Except I don't know what settings to use, so I ended up with a moon that looked like the sun.

After being outside for about 2 hours, I noticed a beam of light coming from behind our cabin.  While I was playing around with the camera outside (and freezing my ass off), my parents and brother had gotten into our minivan because as cold as it was inside, at least it blocked the wind.  And the wind was killing me!

But this beam of light quickly spread - it spread across the sky so it looked almost like a rainbow (unfortunately I couldn't encompass it in my photos) and then it began dancing.  Dancing!  How lucky are we that we got two awesome shows in two nights?  Everyone scrambled out of the car and we stood there mouth agape.

And of course, we had to take photos with the northern lights.  But we're not very good at holding still for 30 seconds without moving a lash, so we came out a little blurry.  But we're not picky, we're still happy with it.  

We decided to go back into the cabin at about 2:15 am because we were freezing cold and tired.  We couldn't stop grinning because we knew just how lucky we were.  Another good day, and day 3 of our vacation is over.