Living in Alaska - Life in the Last Frontier

(*From the song performed by Buster Poindexter in 1987)

It has reached 80-something in interior Alaska, several times over the past week.  I’m not whining about it, but I’m perfectly OK with 70s. Even 60s is fine with me.  You see, most of us don’t have air conditioning up here. And in the summer, the sun is up all day long - which means it can be hot all day long.

We’ve managed to keep the house cool by drawing all the curtains and not allowing the sun to shine into the house.  But what fun is that? We spend 7 months of the year yearning for sunshine, and then find ourselves closing the blinds against it in the summer months, so the temperature in the house doesn’t rise to 90F.

At night, we run into another problem. We have a fan in the home office window that draws warm air out of the house. We open the bedroom window so the cooler night air will be drawn in. But we have to close the black-out curtains in the bedroom so we can sleep, which means the air is blocked.  Fortunately, the air does cool down in the middle of the night (if you can call it that). So much so, that we find ourselves closing the window against the 50F air, and snuggling under our soft fleece blanket. Now that’s perfect sleeping weather.

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I hope all of my American readers had a nice Fourth of July. Steve had to work, so I spent time with Lisa on both Friday and Saturday.

On Friday, we decided to take the furkids up to Murphy Dome for a hike. I wasn’t sure how Sedona was going to react to having Bella in such close quarters (the back of my car), but after an initial snarl and a “I’m the queen here, and this is my car” bark, she turned her attention into putting her head out the window and ignoring Bella.

When we got to the top, it was just as warm as it was in the lower elevations. We took off walking down the 4-wheeler trail, which wasn’t as easy a walk as we anticipated. The trail is deeply rutted in many places, and strewn with rocks of all shapes and sizes. You have to be careful when walking, so as to not sprain an ankle or twist a knee.  The further down the trail we got, the more puddles we came across. Some of the puddles were deep with brown water, while others were more shallow and very muddy. Guess which ones the pups decided they’d like to wallow in?

When Steve and I hike up at Murphy Dome, we deviate from the 4-wheeler path and walk across the spongy tundra to the first set of Tors rocks.  From there, we continue to a second set of rocks - also across mostly spongy tundra. Lisa and I stuck to the path and went to a third set of rocks. Using Google Earth, I estimate that we walked about a mile and a half each way. This doesn’t sound like much, but with the sun blazing hot and a constant uphill walk (on the way back to the car), we were all whooped - to include the pups.

Because the dogs were a muddy, dirty mess, we stopped at the Outdoor Rec Center on Fort Wainwright, so they could take a dip in the river, and rinse off some of the worst of the mud.  Lisa and Bella walked home from there, while Sedona and I drove home and collapsed. I do give Sedona credit: for being an old dog (she just turned 13 a few weeks ago), she’s got some stamina in her. I’m glad that she’s still able to go hiking with me, as she’s good company and always knows the way back to the car.

I only took a few photos while up on Murphy Dome:

Lisa was trying to find a Geocache that is hidden up there. She found it once before, but didn’t have any luck this time. Bella looked quite interested though!

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Saturday, our plans included attending the North Pole Fourth of July parade, and then going to Pioneer Park/Alaskaland for the festivities there.  Lisa came over early enough that we could enjoy some coffee and toasted bagels before leaving for North Pole.  We drove to St Nicholas Catholic Church, which is where they were assembling for the parade. I took a few photos of the clowns painting their faces, and the kids’ decorated bikes.

Just before the parade was scheduled to start, we found a parking place along the route, where Lisa could park in a way that allowed us to watch while perched on the tailgate.

The leading group consisted of local Harley riders. Beautiful bikes of all colors passed by, thundering as their engines were revved.  Following, were antique and classic cars. Seeing them brought back a lot of memories for Lisa and I. Hard to believe the vehicles that we drove, or that our friends and family drove, are now classics. Talk about feeling old.

Several groups of young people marched by: scouting groups, Tae Kwan Do, sports teams. We saw more than one Santa Claus (try explaining that to the littlest kiddies). There were go-karts and even a dog team.  There was a couple who were riding big, old fashioned bicycles, and a young girl on a unicycle. And there were pigmy goats, a horse, and bunnies. And so much more…

The parade finished up with fire trucks and ambulances. Smokey the Bear shot water from a super-soaker type gun into the crowd. Candy was tossed to the kids.  When the parade was over, we walked over to the school to check out the festival booths. We hoped to see the bed races, but got conflicting stories as to when they would take place. One person said the race was right after the parade, and another said it wouldn’t be until later in the afternoon. We decided to grab a bite to eat in Fairbanks before going to Pioneer Park.

This little girl wasn’t quite sure what she should be doing:

Pioneer Park was very crowded by the time we got there at around 1pm or so. Lucky for us, someone was pulling out of the parking lot as we were pulling in - so we found a spot immediately.  I was mainly interested in the Kid’s Parade, but also wanted to check out some of the other things too. We wandered in and out of the shops, the small museums, and looked around the S.S. Nenana. The dioramas of the many Alaskan villages in there are really neat.

We listened to the Cold Steel Drum Group play (they were great!) while we people watched. Some kids were tossing water balloons back and forth which not only looked like fun, but also was welcome on such a hot, sunny day.  I think they purposely allowed themselves to get hit with balloons, so they could get wet.

There were so many cute kids at the park - and most of them (as well as adults) were dressed in patriotic red, white, and blue. I ran into several people I knew, but who I hadn’t seen in awhile. The only unfortunate thing about the festivities was that the air was hazy from smoke. There are fires burning around us and the wind brought the smoke our way. It isn’t heavy, but it blocks the pretty blue of the sky and is keeping the heat in.  I hope the wind shifts.

After the Kid’s Parade, Lisa asked me if I minded going to see her friends who were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary by having a BBQ at a local park. I was happy to go with her. We stayed and visited for about an hour, before she brought me home. I had a fabulous day!

The Kitty Hensley House woman loves to chat!

All in all, it was a wonderful weekend! I hope this upcoming week continues to bring sunshine, although we could use a little bit of rain for our lawn and flowers too. Just not too much.

Until next time…