the trouble with Alaska
is that it’s in Alaska.
Wrapping up my trip. The sights and local stuff has been awesome. Loved it. Rode a dog sled, took a boat to a glacier, landed on a glacier in an airplane, seen big ass seals. All kinds of stuff.
But it’s really far away and I miss the wife and kids. And that whole near 20 hours of daylight thing is really screwing me up. I’m looking forward to darkness when I go to bed. I’m like Al Pacino in Insomnia.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:32 am
Imagine if you went in the late fall and had 20 hours of darkness.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:48 am
You truly haven’t savored the Alaskan experience until you have clubbed a baby seal.
June 10th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Or shot a grizzly in the face with a .500 Magnum…
June 10th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Sleep? That’s what winter’s for. =)
June 11th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
The first time I saw Fairbanks, it was high summer. We started flying in Syracuse at 6:30am local, and finally chugged into the hotel in Fairbanks at about 6:00pm local. Run the numbers.
Far into our day already, we were still on a rush, though, and got together for a drink. Not too long: the promoter piles us into his van and runs us to some outdoor deep-fried haddock joint, which was just murder.
So, food coma’s setting in, but we’re off to The Howling Dog Saloon, out in Fox. We pulls up and it’s still broad daylight at about 9:00pm. Now, I *know* this, but it’s still very curious to me. We pile out of the van, and the first thing I see in the dirt parking lot is a line of Harleys and a scattering of expended 12-gauge shells. I love it all, instantly.
Inside, there’s a cool bar, and some indie-sounding little band kicking ass over in the corner, and I’m thinking: “Cool. This is the evening.”
It was about 4:00am when I was standing out in the volleyball pit, a beer bottle in each hand, occasionally swinging at mosquitoes so big that I could hear them if I hit them… when it occurred to me that the light was beginning to come from a very different angle and fairly suddenly.
I realized: “That’s morning.”
And then I wondered when the hell those people sleep, and whether I was gonna die there.
It’s a very interesting place.
June 13th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
I’m pretty sure we went to The Howling Dog, when I visited friends in Fairbanks, many years ago. My memory is quite vague, however.
June 14th, 2010 at 3:37 am
The thing I like *best* about living in way northern Alberta is the very, very long days and brightly lit early mornings we get around June 22nd. For the next few days it really isn’t dark at midnight where I live and I love every minute of it.
And I can sleep just fine.