Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Day 2, the Artic Circle

I went to bed around midnight. This pic was taken at 12:05am Alaskan time and I had NO FRIGGIN' IDEA how I was going to get to sleep.  I didn't do well, but I eventually got the job done.

So to continue our story, the extra rest did seem to help Rob! The other 3 of us decided to walk to the Crepery for breakfast and when we woke Rob up to inform him of our plans,  he wanted us to wait until he was ready!  

Rock on!  We're better as a pack of 4 any time so we waited for his 17 year old arse to get ready.

This ol' boy was a neighbor across the street from our AirBn'b.  I was amused by his like of a specific shade of yellow from his sweatshirt to his front door and decided to "make him famous" on our blog that is read by less than 50 people...  He was quite obviously attracted to this color but also obviously, not "all in".  Thank you sir for playing along and I apologize a little bit...

That is a slice of the profile of pilot Sam!  At the top of the photo, I would like to note the level of gas in the left and right wings.  The left is slightly below 3/4 and the right was just at/or a needles width sharp of 3/4.  It struck me as odd right away that they wouldn't both be full, but perhaps Sam knows that we don't need full tanks to make it from Fairbanks to Coldfoot...  Sam want's to make it back home to his family as badly as we want to make it home so I trust him.  He probably also looked at the "bulk" of his passengers (ie, ME!!) and thought he could compensate a bit by not having full tanks...  I don't know.

I'm fine with motion sickness but the other 3 are a lottery when it comes to how they will feel.  Honestly, the back end of our little "Buddy Holly" wagged liked an excited puppy many times.  There were a few times where the back end of the plane waved a bit much with some seemingly huge drops in elevation making a person consider a change in undies..

Caleb was feeling horrible during this flight and was also separated from mama chaos and I due to weight requirements in a Buddy Holly.  Rob after getting ill during our helicopter ride around the Big Island of Hawaii, took him under his wing and nursed him thru it.

The Tanana River & Fairbanks International Airport in the upper right quadrant of the pic.

Not very far into the flight, I noticed that the gas level's had dropped significantly since our blast off.  Nearly a half of tank left in both and this is shortly after getting up to altitude.  I like Sam, but maybe not as much as I think!  I don't have pics of it, even though I thought I did, but the gas tanks were both on 'E' and while we were close to Coldfoot, there was still no airstrips in site.  I was questioning my mortality a bit...

One of the wildfires that we had heard/read about before leaving home!  Cool to see it from the air and also cool to see how small of an area had actually burned in contrast to what you hear on the local news.  I am in NO WAY saying that it's insignificant!!!  It is, but if you super impose Alaska over the top of the midwest, you get an idea of just how enormous Alaska is and what has burned.  It was also cool to learn that Alaska has it's "burn season" from June to early July and a cold front usually comes in that stunts it to whatever degree.  The 2022 cold front even brought with it, according to local weather reports, "a significant rain event", meaning that there would be flash flooding and that the rain would persist on and off for the next 10 to 12 days.  They were not kidding, but more on that later... 

So, where the heck were we going?  Fairbanks to Coldfoot is that answer.  If you were driving, it would be over 6 hours on the Dalton Highway.  As we flew?  I don't recall, but I think just over an hour and some change.

On the ground in Coldfoot Alaska!  If you've watched Ice Road Truckers much, you will recognize the name of this joint as the Northern most truck stop in America.  You can read more about it here if you're so inclined.

Once we landed in Coldfood (see photo above) we had another drive to get us up into Wiseman.  Super cool scenery on both sides of the highway as you head further North and you're also driving alongside the Alaskan Pipeline too as this highway was built to support the pipeline.  God Bless America and our problem solving ways when the government gets the heck out of the way!!!

Into the van we we go on to the Kamakazee trail as it was originally known.

After the plane ride to Coldfoot, you continue on the Dalton Highway up towards Prudhoe Bay until there is an exit onto a gravel road that leads you into the metropolis of Wiseman, Alaska.   We learned early on that all of the roads up North on built on top of permafrost and therefore, you have dips and whatever else that may surprise you from time to time.  This fact figures into the story later on as well.

We stop at this fella's house as part of our tour.  Every now and again, I think I might be a man, but then you run across a person like this and realize that I am merely a pimple on the arse of a real man.  This guy is a badass, and I don't mean that in the way of Cobra Kai.  I mean that that this dude kills a bear and moose every summer for his families winter meat.  He has figured out how to grow a pile of carrots and potatoes (and more) in the two months that his Lord and Saviors weather allows!  That is badass!

Jack is the one in the pink shirt.  Not the wiring on the outside of the walls.  There is no need to have any violation of the walls to the outside winter weather when you can simply run it this way!

This is outside of Jacks place.  The solar panels are pretty unique as well.  The 3 panels with the rustier color he explained are some rare panels that aren't built commonly but he says they're indestructible.  Also not part of his garden to the left of the pic.

More of his garden...  Inside that window in the photo is where Jack was standing as he let us tour his house.

Jack's wife's store, the Twisted Willow.  The 12 peeps that are year round residents up here have to have multiple ways to earn some cash.  This is yet another of her fam's way of raising some funds.

This is the old chapel where Jack's mom would hold Sunday service when she was alive and well.

One of the "guest cabin's" for when their kiddos return home and need a place to crash.

Same...  guns in every corner of every room as you never know when you'll be the subject of the next "encounter".

Firewood...

Skeeter net over the bed in the guest cabin.

I truly don't remember that this was but I think it might be the Bed and Breakfast that some youngsters opened more recently upon moving up here.  If that is the case, Jack spoke of them in high fashion!

What the heck is the name of this river?  Dunno...  you figure it out.  Google maps apparently has a job opening for mapping these roads and rivers this far North and I'm open to accepting that job!!!

What does Wiseman look like?  Well, a bit like this.  I can tell you that it looks MUCH larger on Google maps that it does in person!

When we got back to Coldfoot, I was talking with the driver of our van while peeps used the the bathrooms in the Northern most truckstop in America.  This truck was carrying something that he named by name and that I cannot remember, but they are used to lay over the roads when the oil companies are transferring rigs from one location to another.  The rigs/equipment are so heavy that they devised this system of protecting the roads by laying down these "pads".  

Alaskan Vaca 2022 - Part I - Travelling To Fairbanks

July 12th, 2022...  currently sitting in the Minneapolis / St. Paul International airport alone with all of luggage while Mama Chaos took the critters to B-Dubs to do some grazing.  I figured that I'd use some alone time to do some writing.  It is 4:05pm CST and our flight takes off at 6pm.

We got up around 6:30am to get prettied up, finish packing too much crap, water the garden one last time before my neighbor takes over and other various  and sundry stuffs.  Once the car was loaded, I had EVERYONE come out and verify that their bags were included after last years fiasco.

We left the house at 9:20am and after a quick stop at Scooters for some coffee and a smoothie, we were on the road!  After two stops, we arrived at Mama's cousins house where our vehicle will remain for the next many days.  We chatted for a while before our Uber arrived.  He was a fine fellow named Jamal, and did a fine job getting us to exactly where we needed to be.

While we are on the way to the 50th state for all of us, we don't fly very often and when the Schmitz Mobile Chaos Unit gets into an airport, that fact becomes blatantly obvious!

Going thru the TSA check was my first of what will likely be many screw-ups.  The good lady is checking our passports and Caleb still had on his mirrored sunglasses (got to look good for the ladies!).  The lady asked him to remove them and he didn't hear her.  She repeated it and both Mama & Rob said, "Remove the sunglasses!".  And like Caleb and I do at home about 10 times a day,   I said, "Geez, Ya terrorist!".  Whoops!!  Like I said, we call each other that at home ALL OF THE TIME, but home we are not!  Luckily she either didn't understand what I said or flat out didn't hear it, or I suspect that we still might be there...   whew.

Now, we sit and wait.  This is where that first paragraph comes into play.

Loading our tiny, tiny bags of sun chips!!

Caleb, like myself, likes looking out the window at the planes taking off and landing, as well as keeping a keen eye on what is happening with our own bird!

Currently, it is nearly 11pm CST and we're about 45 minutes from landing in Fairbanks.  Our flight was about 10 - 11 minutes late taking off and they had oversold the flight by roughly 13 people.  How does this happen?  I have zero ideas, but they announced that they were offering people $1000 cash, plus free hotel and meals to delay their flight by 24 hours.  Not many takers at first but they went to $1100 pretty quickly, and eventually up to $1500.  We decided that if they got to $2000, we'd take the deal.  When they were at $1500, our section was called to board so no decision was to be made.

The outside temp is -72 degrees and we're traveling at 505mph.  It's 8:03pm in Fairbanks currently and it bright up here in the clouds as if it were noon!

I'm excited to be out of the plane as my butt and low back are starting to hurt!  However, the only part of flying that is worse than boarding the plane is disembarking the plane!  But, flying is what allowed us to do this vaca so I'll tolerate it as best that I can.

After successfully getting off of our bird, we divided to conquer both the baggage claim and our rental vehicle.  I took the job as official rental car securer as Mama and the varmints went to stare blankly at the baggage carousel. 

I learned quite quickly that if I was the only one that showed their license that I was the only person who could legally drive this vehicle.  Not a big deal unless I broke a friggin' ankle hiking or something ridiculous like that.  I called Mama over so that we could have two drivers in the event of emergency as I am known for doing stupid crap.

Once I got all of the paperwork signed and handed over a weeks salary,  I turned around to my peeps with our checked bag!  Things are going smoothly so far!  We load all of our crap into our Hyundai Santa Fe and board the vessel to embark on the journey to find our first AirBn'b. 

This picture doesn't have much to do with anything but if you're going to photograph the lad, you've got to sneak them in sometimes!

Our vessel for the next several days.  More on this thing later!

Turns out that it wasn't very hard to find and therefore wasn't much of a journey either, which is fine!

We pick our rooms and get stuff situated.  Rob is feeling super bad and the descent of the plane had him feeling miserable!  When he knew which room was his, he laid down and was OUT!!  Caleb and I ran out to find some food and ended up at a grocery store for a few things and grabbed some sammy's and sushi.  We had to wake Rob up when we got back and he got up to eat a bit and was back in bed in about 15 - 20 minutes with some food and meds in his belly.

A (bad) pic of the sun being shaded by all of the smoke in the air.  The smoke had my eye's burning and sinuses jacked up.  Thank goodness we woke up to rain on the first morning, I believe which took a bunch of the smoke down with it.

Luckily, we didn't have to be anywhere until about noon so we let Rob sleep.  It helped, thank God.

Day 1 is in the books...

The Squash That Took Over The World

Two of our squash plants decided to die.  This guy decided to take over the world!

 

Midnight Fire With Our Critters

 

Junie B. Being Junie B.

 

I may be a bit biased, but she's cute!!

Knee High By The 4th Of July, 2022 Edition

 

It Was 96 degrees, & Then It Was 72!

Amazing what a storm front can do! I spent all day in the house with near 70% humidity and the temps around 85 in the basement. MUCH hotter upstairs!!

And this is what the sunset looked like.  Our friends took this picture as I didn't think too.  It was super creepy looking out there!