Weekend in Fairbanks

First full week of classes went all right.  The engineering department had a free barbecue outside in the quad Friday so my Mechanics professor let us out early and I checked it out during break.  Definitely a step up from RIT free barbecues.  Hot dogs, hamburgers with lettuce, tomato, onions, cheese and a few other things I can't think of.  Not to forget potato salad and a huge bowl of spear pickles plus soda.  Anyway, it was delicious and a gorgeous day.

So later that night the people upstairs had a bon fire in the backyard which was pretty cool.  Roasted a few marshmallows, met a few people and had a good time.

Saturday I got up to do a few things and stopped at a crazy gift shop with this crazy guy that doesn't stop talking and has the most random things.  He actually led us into his creepy basement to show us an insane collection of all sorts of antlers and mammoth tusks.  My phone wouldn't take a picture of the stock pile of antlers but there must have been hundreds more to the right it was just darker.  I'm not entirely sure why there's so many, but he had some cool decorations made out of a few of them.

After that I went to the farmers market which was awesome.  Tons of stuff there, bought a few things and had this fried dough type thing with different meats and onions grilled up and put inside.  Then had probably the biggest corn on the cob I've ever seen (people put hot sauce on their corn here....) and some chicken teriyaki on a stick then got some locally made ice cream and called it a day.  Going on a fall-photo hike tomorrow so hopefully weather will be good for some pictures.

Life in Fairbanks

Well I've been through about a week of classes here.  First of all, the weather has been amazing, between 60 and 70 degrees, clear skies and very very sunny.

 

I have a PO Box, it's very very tiny but fits regular envelopes and packages have to be picked up when the post office is open which is a pain.  But it's PO Box 754021 Fairbanks, AK 99775-4021.  It takes me about 10 minutes to walk to class from my apartment which isn't bad especially with the weather.  Just have to walk down the street and up a ton of stairs and the engineering building is the closest one.  Here's the top and bottom of the stairs I get to walk up, not so bad but it's a pain with all the text books...

Last week there was a day it was clear enough to see Mount McKinley (Denali) off in the distance which is the highest peak in North America, just over 20,000 feet from sea level I think.  It actually is bigger than Mt Everest, just not from sea level.  McKinley rises about 18,000 feet from ground level where Everest only rises about 12,000 feet.  You can barely make it out in this picture but it's about 160miles away.

Gunnysack Creek

After getting a little familiar with the campus, I signed up for a trip to hike Gunnysack Creek through the Outdoor Adventure group here.  It ended up being a little rainy and very foggy and apparently we were in the midst of some insane mountain ranges and glacier paths but we couldn't see much as we climbed higher.  The creek was glacier fed itself and I don't know how far, but if we had kept hiking up we would have come across the glacier.  We got to a point where we couldn't cross safely and couldn't continue hiking so we found a separate trail through a wooded field which led to an ATV trail and back to a dirt road that follows the Alaskan Pipeline which was underground for that section.  Here are some pictures.

Watson Lake to Fairbanks

Leaving Watson Lake I wasn't sure how long US customs would take or where I would end up stopping again but driving through the Yukon Territory was amazing.  Huge open spaces surround by giant, jagged, snow capped mountains.  Saw a giant bull moose off at the edge of the woods at one point but it turned and ran.  Definitely the biggest animal I've ever seen asides from maybe an elephant at the zoo.

 After it was still only around 6pm when I got to the last little town before the US border (which really didn't qualify as a town) I bought a sandwich and continued on.  Customs was a breeze, stepped out of the car for a few seconds, looked at my passport and registration and said I was all set.

 I drove about an hour and a half or so and arrived in Tok, which again, shows up on the map as a town but there's really not much to it.  Got gas and decided since I was only about 3 hours from Fairbanks, I would just continue and finish out the trip.  Didn't take many pictures past Tok since it was mostly dark but arrive in Fairbanks around 11:30pm, got into my apartment and passed out on my air mattress.

Update from the trip

Between Grande Prairie and Watson lake are basically the northern rocky mountains.  Coming up to them was fairly gradual and didn't really take many pictures, but the roads got pretty narrow and saw lots of wildlife.  It rained a little on and off and and eventually I stopped and took a few pictures.

Didn't take any pictures after this until the next day in the Yukon Territory...