The Diagonal

Yukon Quest Part V: Eagle to Dawson City

2010-05-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

"Helloooo, sexy girlfriend!"

Sam greeted me as he entered the hotel room. In reality, he greeted my bunny boots, which were sticking off the edge of the bed. I didn't know what he was saying (I have never seen "Sixteen Candles"), but was in no shape to care. Had I cared, I was in no shape to conjure words in the proper order to ask him about it. Upon further inspection, I found myself face-first on the mattress and sweating because I hadn't bothered to remove my coveralls, boots or hat before falling asleep for ... well, how long was I out?

I looked at the alarm clock. 9:07 a.m. Five minutes, maybe six. Oy.

Sam said something about taking pictures on American Summit, the steep climb that mushers face after leaving Eagle, and he left. He might have said something about throwing dwarves into glass-bottomed boats, too. That's my recollection, anyway.

I tried to sleep, but the critically unhealthy amount of caffeine I had consumed during the past 24 hours was not allowing that. So I slung the Marantz over my neck and headed back to the dog yard. I needed to get some recordings in case we missed the leaders getting into Dawson City, or if they arrived too late.

At the old schoolhouse, I chatted with Mike Ellis for a bit -- without turning on the microphone. He and his wife, Sue, had recently moved up to Two Rivers to pursue dog mushing as full-time as possible. They're from New Hampshire and take pride in their kennel of purebred Siberian huskies. They're the picturesque sled dogs, with thick fur coats and pointy ears that are most people's preconceived notion of the animals. In truth, most sled dogs today are bred for speed and mixed with short-haired animals like hounds. They're all-around cool people and very friendly to the media and folks who no nothing about mushing.

I finally did turn on the mic, and whoa! Ellis has a baritone voice that sends the Marantz levels into the red "unusable" zone quite easily. I got some quotes out of it for the paper, but I kept one finger on the volume button while transcribing so my ears would not catch a sonic boom.

On the way back, I passed Annalee, who was brimming with perk after her first shower in two days. She had already filed more stories than the Star could handle, so she was free. I was going to nap, but then a thought struck me: "Who gets to see Eagle in the wintertime?" So bollocks to sleep when there's life to be had.

Annalee and I decided to have a beer or two on the bank of the Yukon River. She knew a nice spot where she and Sam had camped out to take pictures the day before. I went to the market to grab a six pack.

No such luck. No booze in Eagle. I got a questionable glare from the storeowner when I asked, but luckily I've long since gotten over any shame of my alcoholism. She smiled when I told her my master plan about a beer on the banks of the Yukon. "You'll just have to wait until you get to Dawson," she said. Oh yeah, I guess I'll be on the Yukon banks for a while, huh?

I reported the snag to Annalee, and she quickly remedied the situation with leftover wine from Circle. We were a little worried about carrying it around town, so we transported it in plastic bottles along with some Doritos. We left a trail of chip crumbs to a perch on the northwest side of town, a few feet back from a steep dropoff to the river. We plunked down in the snow and sipped the wine, enjoying this view:

OK, so maybe I gulped the wine, which did not make breaking trail to and from our picnic area very easy when a bathroom break was necessary. I finished my bottle before Annalee could drink a quarter of hers. At this point, I did feel a little ashamed of my alcoholism, especially when I ended up stealing a few swigs from her bottle.

An hour flew by as we talked about nearly every getting-to-know-you topic. Our families, countries, childhoods, politics, you name it. It amazed me how comfortable we'd gotten with each other in a short time. Four days earlier, we were answering the other's questions with one word or dodgy phrases; that day, it seemed like we were long-lost friends catching up.

Well, 12:30 rolls around and we figure we'd better find Sam since our flight leaves in 90 minutes and I hadn't seen him since he barreled into the hotel room that morning. We hoof it back to the hotel and wait, watching a cartoon on rabbit-eared television. Annalee knows what it is; I don't. Is it a Canadian-American divide, or am I just out of touch with the latest Nicktoons? Never mind. There's a little more wine.

With about half an hour to go, we start getting antsy. No sign of Sam, though his gear's in the hotel room, and it takes about 10 minutes to get to the airport. We walk to the checkpoint, where they tell us Sam has just left to got to the hotel room. Uh oh, now we're the one's who will be missing the flight.

Annalee hitches a ride on a snowmachine and I break into a run, but stop when I hear someone yell, "Hey, I'll give you a ride." Yeah, I like Eagle.

I slid into the backseat of a pickup and tossed them $10 as I exited. They tried to refuse but I insisted. Sam was there, wondering where the heck we were. Funny, I was thinking the same thing not too long ago. We pile into a van; literally, Annalee and I wedged between luggage in the seatless back. We beat the pilot to the runway.

The flight to Dawson City was fun. The pilot told some dirty jokes, and the view was breathtaking. Did you know there's a bulldozed line through the trees along the Alaska-Yukon border? Weird.

Sam rides up front and I sit in the back with Annalee and about 100 pounds of gear on each of our laps. Our arms are pinned down, and I elbow her a few times. Wait, am I flirting? And if so, what am I, 12 years old?

We land in Dawson, and if there was any sort of customs procedure, I don't recall it. I showed my passport to a smiling lady behind a counter, and that was it. I guess there's no point of smuggling anything into Canada, anyway. I'm pretty sure the illegal contraband supply chain flows the other way.

From a few folks in the airport (which is slightly smaller than my house) and a taxi driver, we learn that the buzz around town is: Either the first musher to Dawson will be here in a few hours, or he got here 15 minutes ago. The odds are on our side, but I'm anxious to get to the checkpoint. We go straight there, luggage and all.

The Dawson City checkpoint is the visitors information center on Front Street, which runs alongside the Yukon. When we get there, Annalee and I dart to the nearest race official. No, no one has arrived. Phew. We go back to the taxi and unload our tons of stuff. We were joined by Jason, a Whitehorse Star reporter/photographer who would be joining us the rest of the way.

Since no one has an idea when the first musher will be in, we stow our tons of gear in the visitors center and grab something to eat. The checkpoint has a snack counter run by a local mushing organization. It's staffed by a gaggle of young females, so I found it easy to pass time by the snack counter. Free coffee and a delicious assortment of homemade baked goods didn't hurt, either.

A couple of hours go by without a musher in sight. By dusk, everyone is certain that Hans Gatt will be coming in first, but no one knows when. There's a few hundred people milling about, all with their own unsubstantiated rumor about the race.

The coffee wore off at 5 p.m., and I found a nice park bench outside the visitors center. I slouched and decided to doze, confident that if the commotion of the crowd didn't wake me, Sam would. The first person to Dawson is a big deal. It's like winning a 500-mile race, and the prize is 4 ounces of Klondike placer gold, which is quite a nice investment these days. For a reporter to attempt a nap while awaiting the finisher was risky, but my wits were slipping, so I had to do something.

At the point when my eyelids seemed too heavy to lift, a hand tapped me on the shoulder. It was Izumi, the Japanese film crew's interpreter. They wanted to interview me. Wow, they must be bored, I thought. So I stumble through five minutes of chatter, offering opinions supported by three whole days of sled dog racing experience. The crew was very attentive, even though Izumi was the only one with any idea what I was saying.

Jason got a picture of the scene, including a wonderful symbol of my cluelessness:

A few minutes after my star treatment ended, a siren sounded from the bluff overlooking the city. Gatt was here! We all rushed to the riverside. I huddled behind a crowd and listened to their chatter, takingg notes to add as possible color to the story. We were all waiting. And we waited. And waited.

Twenty minutes later, Gatt arrived, soaked in overflow with a face that looked like it would never smile again. Annalee and I get our recorders out, and he took off before we could get a question in.

Oh crap. Now what the hell can I write? The Yukon Quest media flacks were saying he would likely return to the visitors center, but that likelihood isn't good enough. Maybe I could ....

Sam grabs me by the sleeve. "You're going to that dog yard," he said. "If you don't, we're screwed." Good plan. Where's the dog yard. "Just follow him along the river, the trail is marked." Noted. So I set off across the Yukon River and up into the hill on the opposite bank. Gatt was in my sight until here crossed through some trees, but Sam was right, the orange-and-black trail sticks were easy to find.

Well, they were easy to find -- until I got to the point where Gatt disappeared into the trees. A road cut through the trail, but there was no marker in plain view in any of the three possible directions. Hmmm. Take a left on the road, and it dead ends in a group of houses with no apparent dog yard. Take a right on the road, and it leads to a hillside highway connected to an ice bridge. I had seen large trucks barreling down that slope, so I don't think they'd send a dog team there. That left forward, up the hill on the trail, as the most plausible option.

I found a positive sign a few feet up the trail -- dog poop and tracks. Good. But after about a half-mile, the trail didn't have any apparent paw marks and I hadn't seen any form of excrement either (the first time I'd ever been disappointed of that there was no poop or pee on the ground). But why would they make the dog teams run on a highway? I continued forward. Another steep half-mile later, I reached a fork in the trail. No markers either way. I had messed up, big-time.

I loped down the hill, carefully choosing my steps in the last glimmer of the day. My coveralls were a sauna, and the Marantz recorder was swinging wildly from my neck. Why would they send a dog team across a highway? Because there's a dog yard on the other side. By the time I found Gatt's spot, he was gone for the night.

All right, all right, Josh. keep it together, I told myself. I might have said it aloud; I really don't know. The important thing was to get back to the finish line to interview the next mushers and pick up the pieces from there.

I got to the entrance of the dog yard, and the siren sounded again. Dang. It was at least a 15 minute walk to the finish line, and I was moving slower than usual. The best way to catch the No. 2 musher was to wait at the dog yard.

About a half-hour later, no dog teams were in sight down the river, and I had get back to the checkpoint to make deadline. I went into the vet's tent to see if I could bum a ride. They couldn't offer one, but Peter Fleck's dad and handler did. I must have looked like an escaped mental patient at that point. Luckily, everyone was being uber-patient with me.

When I got to the checkpoint, I learned that the siren was a false alarm. Phew, so there's still a chance my story wouldn't be entirely horrible. Lance Mackey took second and Hugh Neff was in third. They are both well-known to be media-friendly, and each talked for about five minutes apiece while soaked in overflow at 0 degrees. It turns out there was a huge patch of water about a half-mile from the finish line that was unmarked. No wonder Gatt looked ticked.

When I arrived at the checkpoint, and morosely, angrily and deliriously wrote three stories in 90 minutes. I calmed down while sharing a few Lead Dog Ales with Sam at The Pit.

Then I had the best four hours of sleep in my lifetime. I woke at 7 to call Dan for the radio spot. I didn't mean to fall asleep again, but the next thing I knew, it was 11 a.m. and I had a race leader to find.

Yukon Quest Part IV: Eagle

2010-03-10T02:37:00.000-08:00

Editor's note: Doing what I can while doing what I can. Happy stuff from Eagle tomorrow --and a massive failure in Dawson City.

The small plane weaved over the Yukon River, slowing and swirling whenever a dog team was in view, allowing the two photographers in back to get a shot.

I was in the copilot seat, trying to stay awake as I roasted in my parka. It was way too hot to wear that thing, but the only way I could fit it on the plane was to put it on. The aircraft was obviously designed to accommodate medium and oompa-loompa sized pilots. The steering apparatus kept hitting my knees, and I had to move a leg or arm out of the way every 10 minutes so the pilot could reach some sort of knob or lever.

The view was breathtaking, though I struggled to see through the early morning sun. The Yukon River is more or less encased in mountains, and the flat, wide whiteness of the river cutting through evergreen-covered hills is a stunning sight. We were low enough to see the trail. I followed it with my eyes, noting where it cut through craggy patches called jumble ice.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

We landed around 1 p.m. and hitched a ride into town. One of the first things I found out about Eagle is that anyone is happy to give you a ride to wherever you need to go. Usually, this means you're holding on to the back of a snowmachine, since that's the best way to get around Eagle in the winter. The town can't be driven to in the winter, so why drive a 15 mpg truck?

After dropping our bags off at the hotel, we walked seven blocks to the checkpoint at the old schoolhouse. About halfway there, we passed the library, where the Yukon Quest media folks had set up a wireless router. We arrived at the checkpoint about 10 minutes after the top four had arrived, all within about 15 minutes of each other. Great, I thought, no need to get creative; the story's apparent.

So I interviewed all four and hopped back to the library to get a story done early. Only I was not functioning well enough to get the dang thing done. My mind was drifting every five minutes, and there was always someone requesting my attention. Peter Kamper, the Quest video guy and Mile 101 checkpoint manager, was talking mushing strategy to me and making some pretty salient points, but I was absolutely fried. I'm pretty sure I know what doing heroin feels like after that afternoon.

So Annalee I went back to the checkpoint to write somewhere else and catch the next pack of mushers, who would be arriving in about an hour. I opened my laptop and finally got a few paragraphs flowing, when the Eagle checkpoint manager, a tall German fellow, informed me that I was sitting at the mushers table and would have to move. To where, that open table next to us? No, that's the veterinarians table. So I've got to squeeze into a spot a the two nearly full tables where I'd have to dodge the hanging

Yes, he said, adding that he could kick me out if he felt I was an intrusion.

I was miffed to no end about that last part. Kick me out? I had been nothing but professional this whole way. What the hell? In all honesty, I wanted to throw my laptop against the wall and retreat to a place that had warm beer and silence.

I met him several times later on the trail, and it occurred to me that he was just being efficient and trying to explain to me his purpose there so I would know. Just a hard-to-the-rules German. There were a lot of those types on the trail, treating the race as an all-revered spectacle that should be run efficiently and with as little intrusions as possible. As a member of the media, I am essentially an intrusion, so I came to despise this attitude. All in al, he wasn't trying to be pushy, though. It was just a cultural communication glitch.

Still, I was ticked, so I tried to walk it off around the dogyard. Luckily, a few mushers arrived while I was steaming through, and I got a couple more interviews. It was well after dusk by the time this was all done, so I trudged to the new schoolhouse at 7 to pick up some diner -- Mexican food again, the same as in Circle,; was this a coincidence or was there some strange connection I wasn't aware of? -- and I blindly ambled along the lightless streets to the library. The stars were bright, beautiful and the only things I could see. I kept on course by stepping lightly and feeling for snow berms with my feet.

At the library, I was somewhat delirious and more than eager to lash out at anyone who gave me the opportunity. I thing everyone realized this. Somehow, three stories were written and sent to the News-Miner. I honestly don't remember doing this. I remember thanking Peter for the strategy advice, which became the focal point of my main story. I remember making a last-minute run out to the checkpoint to try to catch Joshua Cadzow to ask about why he had dropped dogs, but I don't remember writing a darn thing.

At midnight, I went back to the checkpoint, using my cell phone to dimly light the way (I threw my bag against a wall in Central and broke the bulb in my headlamp). I needed radio clips, just in case we didn't get to Dawson in time to see the leaders come in. On my fifth or sixth wind, I sat around the checkpoint, caught two mushers and read the trail report from trail coordinator John Shandelmieier, who is known to leave little surprises out there.

Since there was no phone at the hotel, I decided to nap at the library before my radio interview with Dan. I threw some more wood into the stove and found a broken desk chair top that worked as a pillow. I got about 15 minutes of sleep. Before calling Dan, I killed time by breaking down numbers from old Quest results.

I strolled back to the old schoolhouse in the early-morning sun to see if there was breakfast available. There wasn't. Oh well, I was in better spirits anyway. It was warm, relatively of course, at just -10 degrees. I sat at a fire outside the checkpoint with some volunteers and chatted about sleep deprivation, which was becoming my newly acquired field of expertise. One of the volunteers said going 36 straight hours without rest was easy for him. "You just have to know how to take the edge off," he said before walking into the woods to smoke some weed. He came back a calmer man.

I stumbled into the hotel and fell face-first onto my unused bed.

Yukon Quest Part III: Circle

2010-03-03T01:10:00.001-08:00

Editor's note: This is part III of a series that has become indefinite. I'll write something for every morning, but that's all I'll promise.

Sam and I arrived in Circle at midnight, just in time. The trail runs alongside the highway just before it reaches town, and we saw Lance Mackey heading to the checkpoint as we entered city limits. We stopped in the middle of town --- which is the corner equidistant from the grocery store/gas station, the school, the washeteria and the fire station.

I hopped out and saw three mushers unpacking the same equipment at the same time. Lance Mackey, Zack Steer and Hugh Neff had arrived within minutes of each other. I got a few quotes and details before walking back to the truck to wake Sam up. It was then that I began to envy him. With no daylight, Sam couldn't take great pictures easily, so he always had a fail-safe excuse to nod off.

We checked into our hotel, the Circle School. We picked out some spots on the gym floor and set up our sleeping bags. There was a bag in the corner with pink and blue hair sticking out of the top. Looks like Annalee had made it. I jogged to the fire station/checkpoint and scoped the place out. No one was due in for another hour or two, so we decided to call it a night. Before laying down, Sam and I agreed to hike out to Carl Cochrane's cabin on Birch Creek. We turned in just before 3 a.m.

My cell phones were both low on power and there were no nearby outlets. They were my only alarm clocks, so I was worried that I would miss my first radio call-in at 6:45 a.m. I was anxious and woke every half-hour or so. When I jolted awake at 5:30, I figured that would be the best I could do. Sure enough, the cell phone I used as an alarm died at 6. I killed the time by writing my family an e-mail and looking at the front pages around the country for their Super Bowl coverage.

Exiting the gym I noticed what looked like school projects covering the hallway walls. This was my favorite:

Groggy and inexperienced, I called the radio station from the principal's office. KUAC's Dan Bross practically held my hand through the call-in report. I was grateful.

Sam was up when I returned. We game-planned: I should go get most of my race-story interviews done early in the morning so we could leave for Cochrane's cabin by 10 a.m. Game on. I grabbed my notebook and stumbled over to the fire station, where there was nary a musher to be seen. The leaders were long gone, and the second wave of arrivals were snoozing away.

I grabbed some bacon and eggs and chatted with the handlers, which had proven to be both fun and productive because they knew more about the sport than I did. Rachel Steer, Zack's sister who was handling for him, showed me some clips she made with a Flip camcorder. It was pretty funny stuff. I was especially interested because it showed at least one musher when he wasn't on guard with the media around. Well, kind of: Rachel is a magazine editor and freelance writer (and former Olympic skier).

Belgian rookie Sam Deltour arrived in time to tell me some interesting stories about sleep deprivation, and that was enough to hold me over. To Cochrane's!

Cochrane's cabin has been a pit stop for mushers since the original Quest in 1984. Carl is a tough old coot who learned to love the outdoors while he grew up near Jacksonville, Florida. His small, two-room cabin (a huge living area with a sleeping quarters just big enough for a bed) is covered in handmade crafts. He's 76 and doesn't look a day over 92. He built his cabin -- twice, the first one burned down -- and several other structures around it by himself.

Annalee was interested in the cabin, too, and came along. We stopped at the bridge over Birch Creek, about 10 miles back along the swerving road from Central, and hoofed it from there.

It was a 2-mile jaunt down the creek, and we followed the Quest trail the entire way. I told stupid jokes, Annalee collected dog booties -- yipping "Bootie!" every time we saw one -- and Sam quietly struggled with a bad back while carrying his camera gear. It began snowing about a mile into the journey and we all ended up pretty frosty.

Cardboard signs that said "Cabin" were affixed to the trail markers, so we knew when we were close. We climbed straight up the riverbank on steps covered with unstable packed snow and knocked on the door. Cochrane took us in like old friends. Peter Fleck, the 19-year-old kid from Salisbury, England, showed up a few minutes later.

Cochrane told us the history of just about everything inside his cabin, including himself. As a kid, he lived in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, fer crimey sake. "Fer crimey sake" was his favorite expression. We listened to his stories while sipping coffee fresh off his wood stove. Bart de Marie stopped by about a half-hour later and downed a few cups himself.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

Cochrane hosted Quest mushers even when he barely had anything of his own. Once, racers camped out under the frame that was to become his cabin. Today, he has a small bunkhouse for visitors and mushers to sleep in.

Sam and Annalee took some shots of Fleck and de Marie working with their dogs, then we each took a swig from Sam's flask and tromped off. About a half-mile later. Sam realized he had forgotten his equipment belt and turned back. While we were waiting, Annalee decided to sit on the riverbank, and ended up in the riverbank.

She said it was comfy, so I plopped into the snow beside her. I have no recollection what we said, but for the first time in three days neither of us were talking about the Quest, and that was nice. I was kind of loopy from the lack of sleep, but we got to know each other. Sam was back in what seemed like no time. It snowed harder on the rest of the walk, however, and the journey to the truck did not seem like no time.

I caught about 10 minutes of sleep before banging away on my stories. Sam was out on the river waiting for a musher -- any musher -- to come by. The race begins on the Yukon River from Circle, and it's a pretty big deal to get a shot of a dog team on the river. Deltour appeared on the river with just enough daylight for Sam to get the shot he needed.

The school cafeteria sold us Mexican food for dinner, and all three of us pounded on our keyboards until something that looked like journalism appeared.

Then came the nightcap. Sam treated us to some more whiskey from the flask, a pilot who was also crashing in the gym passed around Coors Lights and Annalee uncorked a bottle of wine that was a little slushy from sitting in the truck since we left Fairbanks. It wasn't the first time I'd drank in a school gym, but it was the first time it wasn't a school I was attending.

I strolled back to the checkpoint to make sure nothing crazy had happened. It was about 20 degrees and the sky was full of stars despite the bright lights from the school. Nothing crazy had happened. Katie Davis was at the checkpoint, and I interviewed her for the radio while she was wearing a yellow-top, purple-bottom longjohn combo that I'm sure has gained a level of notoriety in her hometown of Olney, Montana. davis' handler posted this on her kennel's blog:

Shamelessly stolen from EveningStarKennel.blogspot.com

Sam and the pilot passed out by 11. Annalee and I refilled our cups with wine and chatted until about midnight.

I got about five hours of sleep and was relatively more relaxed for the radio call-in the next morning. I took a hot shower that was well worth the $10 it cost me, picked up my stuff and headed out to the truck, where I saw Sam looking at the engine. Not a good sign.

Luckily, all it needed was a jump start. We drove to the airstrip about a mile away and listened to National Public Radio while we waited for the plane. It was late, and I started wondering if we could catch the leaders by the time they got to Eagle. Two mushers had set a record pace to Slaven's Roadhouse -- halfway to Eagle -- and if we didn't get there by 3 p.m., the frontrunners would be sleeping during the mandatory 4-hour stop.

Our plane landed in Circle only a half-hour behind schedule, and we piled in with a Native family. We left the truck behind for our assistant managing editor Sam Bishop to pick up -- with a note inside saying it needed a jump.

Yukon Quest Part II: Mile101 to Circle

2010-03-02T00:08:00.000-08:00

A dog team leaving Mile 101, en route to Eagle Summit.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

Editor's note: Yeah, yeah. I said I would post all the way to Dawson City. So sue me. I keep remembering things and overwriting, which means I either have to post huge chunks like this or take a second day to pare it down. Circle to Dawson City will be up tomorrow morning.

Also, I've been mooching from Whitehorse Star reporter Annalee Grant's pictures since she posted them on Facebook. Muchos gracias to her for permission to put them here. I couldn't download News-Miner photographer Sam Harrel's pictures and he's out of town at the moment. You can see his work at http://kuac.org/about-us/events/yukon-quest.html and http://newsminer.com/pages/sports_yukon_quest.

Man, the lights on that truck were horrible. I was swerving toward the White Mountains with about 30 feet of visibility and about 50 percent of a functional brain. Maybe a wink or two of sleep would have been a good idea. Oh well, I couldn't change any of that, so we barreled forth.

Sam was riding shotgun, half-dozing and half-accompanying me with conversation. There were a few times that I woke him while he was drifting off because I needed the chatter to keep me conscious. Annalee was in the back either sleeping, ignoring us or being to conked out to make a sound. Up. Down. Right. Right. Hard left. Right. Is that a turn or a hiking path? Oh, It's a turn; hard left!

Mile 101 wasn't hard to spot. The road was lined with trucks and the sole beacon in the dark morning was the checkpoint. I still passed it up, though, and had to make an embarrassing five-point turn. We parked and got out to a stiff breeze in still-surprisingly warm weather. It was above zero anyway.

At the checkpoint, we schmoozed with the handlers and German folks who were running the hospitality house. The house had two small rooms: a kitchen in the front and bunks in the back. The checkpoint managers fried up some eggs, bacon and toast for anyone who wanted it. Mushers could sleep in the bunks, but there was only a thin sheet between rooms, so I'm not sure anybody actually nodded off back there.

There was a wood stove in the hospitality house, and between that and the kitchen, it got blazing hot. People were walking into the 5-degree air outside in just T-shirts to cool down. I stepped in and out of the house about 122 times for the eight hours I was there.

We were told that the dogyard would be off limits with certain exceptions, but Sam, Annalee and I had no problem just walking up to the mushers and chatting. Annalee and Sam snapped away with their cameras while I basically just kicked back and observed. I was waiting for the slower racers to arrive because I would see the fast ones later that day.

Around 10 a.m., Sam and Annalee took the truck to Eagle Summit, the most infamous spot on the trail, to shoot some photos. Half of the mushers who scratch from the Quest do so immediately before or after mounting Eagle Summit. The steep side of the 3,500-plus-foot slope is on the north end. It's a sharp climb from Whitehorse and a steep drop from Fairbanks. If a musher loses control on the way down, they could damage their sled and see half of their equipment spilled across the mountainside.

Here's Annalee's view walking the three-mile trip up the summit:

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

And here's one of the three mushers they saw passing by:

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

Meanwhile, I waited at Mile 101, snacked on bacon and toast and talked to some of the more inexperienced mushers. They had some hard times on the trail between Two Rivers and Mile 101. Dries Jacobs came into the hospitality hous and immediately stripped down to his snowpants and undershirt, hanging a closet full of clothes above the wood stove. He had never seen overflow like that.

Well, since most of y'all are from Florida, let's review my notes on overflow. You see, when a river doesn't freeze to the bottom, there's always a current of water running underneath. When that current hits a corner or stopping point, pressure builds and the water cracks the ice and seeps through to the surface. Voila, oveflow. It's the bane of competitive mushers everywhere, as it soaks them and their dogs and the water quickly freezes.

Dries, a young Belgian running dogs owned by prominent musher Mitch Seavy, sat down next to me with a plate full of grub. He was simultaneously exhilarated, tired and cold. He obliterated a fried egg and toast with a spoon -- the only utensil available -- as he half-complained, half-bragged about how he sank to his thighs in overflow and had to untangle his dogs from trees. He was having the time of his life and struggling every minute of it.

It turns out that while Eagle Summit gets all the attention, the peak before it, Rosebud Summit, was causing all the grief. Eagle Summit had a smooth trail that made for some easy up-going and a pile of powdery snow for a relatively simple descent. Rosebud Summit, on the other hand, had patches of snow-free, rocky trail and overflow that got deeper with each sled that passed over it.

The rest of the rookies had similar horror stories of their overnight romp on Rosebud Summit. I was jotting them down for a story when a middle-aged guy arrives at the checkpoint dragging a sled full of supplies.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

His name was Joachim, and he was walking the Quest trail because -- actually, I'm not really sure why. He likes walking, and his wife got him a ticket to Fairbanks for his 50th birthday so he could make the five-week journey. Luckily, the checkpoint was run by Germans, because he couldn't speak a lick of English and I had to interview him with a translator. The translator, a burly fellow who should have starred in Das Boot, kindly took a few minutes from frying eggs and stirring halibut chowder to help me get the story.

Sam and Annalee got back from Eagle Summit while I was talking to Joachim, and we were off to Central shortly afterward. Away from the wind of Mile 101, it was practically summertime. All right, it was about 20 degrees, but that's hot here.

Central is one of the favorite spots along the trail because the local roadhouse, Crabb's Corner, is the first full-service stop. The fact that they give a free steak to all the mushers doesn't hurt, either.

The HAM radio operators who track the dog teams were set up in a little shack outside:

It was extra packed that day because there was another little sporting event going on that day, Sunday, Feb. 7. I got some radio clips done and settled down in the restaurant with a cheeseburger (paid for by my expense account), a beer (not so much) and a decent view of the TV. Here's what a Super Bowl party looks like in Central, Alaska:

But with three stories to write, I didn't watch much of the game. I just kept track of the score and hammered out the articles in a laundry room. The table I set my laptop on was bouncing around as the dryer next to it jostled wildly. Normand Casavant was drying his shoes. A few hours and another beer later, I was done. The Super Bowl was long over, and I didn't hear about Peyton Manning's infamous pick until the next morning.

I met Sam at the bar, and we discussed the mushers' paces to decide when we wanted to arrive in Circle, the next checkpoint. Annalee was chasing two Whitehorse mushers in the front of the field, so she had already hitched a ride there with a dog handler. At 10 p.m., we decided the most prudent thing to do was catch the leaders as the came into Circle around midnight.

I had to keep checking my e-mail in case the copy desk had questions, so Sam napped in the truck and I killed time with Cindy Barrand's dog handler, Darryl, discussing the viability of dog mushing as a major U.S. sport. He thinks it can be done; I say no way.

At 11, Sam and I headed up the slick, swerving highway to Circle, our ever-cruddy headlights leading the way 30 feet at a time.

Yukon Quest Part I: Hitting the Trail

2010-03-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

Note: This is the first of four daily posts on my experience with the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race. Check back tomorrow for Part II: Mile 101 to Dawson City.

Photos by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

I usually start my long blog posts "en media res," using a descriptive tale to bring you into the moment. Really, check the old posts. I'm that formulaic.

But what story could bring you into the Yukon Quest? How can I possibly find the precise combination of words to let the few Diagonal devotees, 99 percent of whom have yet to see a full winter, what it's like to follow a 1,000-mile sled dog race?

So forget that. Let's get down to brass tacks and save the flowery stuff for later.

The Yukon Quest runs between Fairbanks and Whitehorse, Yukon, reversing direction every year. It's the route that people traveled by dog team for trade in the old, old days. This year, the race started in Fairbanks.

From Fairbanks, the trail cuts through Two Rivers (Angel Rocks and Granite Tors country) up to the Steese Highway where it follows mountain and river trails to the Yukon River city of Circle. Then, it's off to Eagle on the Yukon River and across the Canadian border to the midway point and party haven of Dawson City, where mushers must spend at least 36 hours.

Ah, Dawson. . .

Crap! Off track again. The final half of the route teeters around the Yukon River and stops by the Klondike Highway towns of Pelly Crossing, Carmacks, Braeburn and finally Whitehorse. The Yukon section is typically warmer and has a better trail since the Canadian Rangers -- their military's Far North information officers and reserves -- traditionally prepare the path. The Rangers backed out this year, but the guy who headed the operation, John Mitchell, was hired to do it again and the result was similar.

Mushers can't get outside assistance except in Dawson City and must finish with at least six dogs. They can leave dogs behind at checkpoints or other designated areas, called dog drops. Got it? Good.

I didn't even know that much when I started covering the race. What's more, I was doing double duty as a radio correspondent. The tough economy has forced a lot of cuts at newspapers across the country, and the News-Miner's feeling a slightly gentler pinch than, say, Southern California, but we're still cutting back and needed a partnership with public radio station KUAC to help foot the bill. Otherwise, we'd have turned around in Circle and covered the rest by phone interviews, which is a fairly inaccurate and flavorless way to report on a sled dog race.

So KUAC news reporter Dan Bross hooked me up with a microphone and a Marantz recorder. After an hour of explanation and an hour of fiddling around on my own, and I was ready to make some crappy recordings. My assignment was to send Dan a few clips per day and be interviewed by him on weekday mornings at 6:45 a.m. -- which is perfect for someone with an 11:45 p.m. newspaper deadline (there's a twinge of sarcasm there, if you didn't notice.)

I've got a face for radio, especially with my on-again-off-again bushy beard. But the good Lord also blessed me with a nasally mumble that must make do as my voice, so the call-ins were going to be interesting, I assumed.

The first place I did a lot of information-gathering was at the vet check, where mushers bring their dogs in to be tagged with a microchip and get a health inspection. I brought the Marantz and got used to looking like this:

Photo by James Brooks/News-Miner

The mushers weren't as closed-lipped as advertised. With a little chatting, they're fairly open to answer any questions; well, as much as most other athletes, anyway.

At the vet check, I met some of the people that would become my personal favorites along the trail, namely Katie Davis, Pierre-Antoine Heritier, Sam Deltour, Dries Jacobs and Peter Fleck. These are folks who didn't stand much chance at winning and seemed to be enjoying the experience more than others. Sam especially won me over by describing one of his main leaders as "the most gorgeous dog ever" and "a sassy little bitch." Honestly, I judge people favorably if they're what we newspaper folks call "good quotes," even off the clock.

At 12:30 p.m. The star of the show arrived. Lance Mackey is the most well-known dog musher on the planet. He's the Alaskan Lance Armstrong, since he's won four Yukon Quests and three Iditarods and beaten throat cancer. Really, what can I ask him that he has not been asked 1,000 times? So I asked him what he's been asked 1,000 times and was filmed by a Japanese person while doing so.

Oh yeah, there was an 18-person Japanese film crew shooting a documentary for a public broadcast service. They went everywhere and interviewed everyone. Izumi, their translator, was very courteous and the swarm of Japanese people traveling across the Yukon Quest trail was a spectacle in itself. From what I observed, that documentary will turn out fabulous.

The six days were basically a ritual of celebrated waiting. There was a banquet where mushers drew their starting order from a hat and waited until Saturday. There was a "meet the mushers" event where the racers signed autographs and waited until Saturday. Then there was Friday, when everyone just waited until Saturday. Except for me, News-Miner photographer Sam Harrel and three-time champion Hans Gatt.

I needed a solid source for my pre-race story and Sam needed a fresh photo, so we met Gatt in the parking lot of the Alpine Lodge, where he was staying until the start. He let his dogs out of the dog truck to run around and loosen their legs, so Sam got some nice photos. He chatted with me about the race, and despite my limited experience, I came up with a pretty interesting piece. The dogs were pretty well-behaved, besides peeing and pooping everywhere. We also met Susie Rogan, Hans' better half who was probably the most media-friendly person on the trail. She's talkative, sassy and the perfect foil to Hans, who's always thinking of his next objective.

We grabbed breakfast that morning with Annalee Grant from the Whitehorse Star. She was going to ride up to Circle with us, and the Star was going to provide our ride from Dawson City to Whitehorse. I was expecting a woman in her 30s or older with the typical professional-woman look: conservatively styled hair, biz-cas dress, ect. That was not Annalee -- a 21-year-old with pink and blue hair and a Reptar hoodie. The surprise was welcome. I was mentally prepared to be the kid on the trip, and now I would be spending time with someone who wasn't only young, but even young by my standards.

Finally, race day! No more waiting! Well, not much. I showed up at the Borough Assembly parking lot-turned-dogyard at 8 a.m. to catch some of the first mushers to arrive. The starting time was 11 a.m. The rookies were the first to show up, eager and nervous. By 9 a.m., most had gotten their sleds and equipment ready, while the veterans were rolling in -- just in time to get ready while the rookies anxiously eyed their fully packed sleds for an hour.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

And then, we waited some more. At least there was the weather to keep everyone spirits high. A predicted -5 morning was actually around 10, and sure to rise by midday.

Sam and Annalee, also a photographer, set up in the starting chute on the Chena River -- where the mushers would begin the 1,000-mile journey. I strolled around the crowd, meeting folks and observing details for a feature story.

I noticed a plume of smoke coming from near the Quest office on the street above, so I climbed off the river to First Avenue, where I saw a van that had apparently been on fire. The AutoStart probably started it, a fireman told me. Firefighters were cutting the hood off of the van, sending sparks onto my legs. I would have stuck around for a short story, but the Quest was about to begin. I heel-slid down the riverbank in time to see Abbie West -- a bright-smiling, pleasantly round bartender from Two Rivers -- be the first Quest musher to head up the Chena.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

Local boy Brent Sass got his standard raucous sendoff from a group of folks who are just crazy about the 30-year-old with Rivers Cuomo glasses. Sass is usually happy to talk to the media, and he's always got something interesting to say with his "dude, bro" accent that doesn't match his Minnesota background. Joshua Cadzow, a 22-year-old touted as the resurgence of Native Alaskan mushing, left to a chorus of whoops and cheers as well. Mackey got the loudest ovation, as expected, when he left in the 11th position.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

There was a solid line of people that stretched for about a quarter-mile from the staring gate. Because temperatures jumped into the teens, most of them stuck around until 19-year-old Brit Peter Fleck leave last at 12:09 p.m. Two years earlier, it was -40 when the Quest started, and people came for just 15-or-so minutes at a time.

After a quick toast at the Big I with some of Sass' crew and fellow News-Miner reporter Matias Saari, the Quest reporter for the four previous years, I took the company truck to the Two Rivers checkpoint to catch up with some of the mushers there. Annalee came along, and we had to stop at the Pleasant Valley Store to double-check where the campground/checkpoint was. The pull-off for the store crosses the Quest trail, and I was extremely cautious to make sure that no teams were anywhere nearby when I entered and exited. Hitting a dog team with a truck will get you strung up by your toenails without trial in Two Rivers.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

We weren't expecting anyone to stop for long at Two Rivers, since it was just 45 miles from the starting line, but many did. Zack Steer was the first to show up and we talked about, um, not much. I had just seen him a few hours beforehand and -- guess what? -- not much had changed.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

I was basically there just in case something happened. Nothing did, except for a beautiful sunset and the confusingly late arrival of Ken Anderson. He camped out before reaching the checkpoint, which is an incredibly short distance for a dog team's first rest.

Photo by Annalee Grant/Whitehorse Star

We headed back at dusk. I wrote three stories -- my expected workload -- by 11 p.m. I filed at the office and stayed until deadline, leaving at about 12:30 a.m. By the time I took care of all the last-minute chores (watering houseplants, cleaning dishes, ect.) it was 2 a.m. I was set to pick up Annalee in 2 1/2 hours and had no coffee in the house, so I picked up a few 5-Hour Energy drinks and killed time before the two-hour trip to Mile 101 Steese Highway.

This was going to get rough, I thought. I had no idea.

Check back on Tuesday, March 2, for Part II.

I think I know what I did last summer, Part I: Convergence

2009-11-02T00:47:00.001-08:00

Snow again. Does it have to come every year?

The white stuff fell first in early September, but we got a reprieve with above-freezing temps until late October.

But winter was inevitable, and yesterday morning the chill of -4 caused my limbs to shudder.

Not that I mind winter in Fairbanks. Already, folks on the street are a little bit nicer (Hey, that young man in a Gators shirt might not be a tourist after all!) and there’s this underlying sense that this town’s been faking it for the sake of appearances the past four months.

Don’t get me wrong. I love summer here. But with so much to do in such few days, the freedom of light and warmth almost becomes a burden. You can’t put fun things off to take care of the important things. Both must be done immediately or not done at all. The best most of us can do is squeeze trips and hikes in among work, chores and whatever sleep you can get during the sunny night.

If you’re broke and tired at the end of a Fairbanks summer, my best guess is that you did something right. That’s my case, and I feel satisfactorily accomplished.

Yet, there’s that nagging itch. Everything you did only makes you think of something you didn’t do.

I floated the upper Chena River three times and the Clearwater Delta River, but I only had one round of fly fishing and missed out on a three-day float through Chicken.

I drove to Valdez and Manley Hot Springs with James, but another summer went by without a trip to Dawson City or the Kenai Peninsula.

I hiked the Angel Rocks to Chena Hot Springs Trail and Granite Tors, yet the trails in Delta Junction were once again out of reach.

Yeah, rough times, huh? Guess you can’t do it all.

The main thing I’m proud of in the past few months is the 10 days I spent with my parents. They visited for two weeks around the summer solstice in late June.

The trip started off quite mellow. I showed them around Fairbanks, which fairly impressed my folks. Apparently, this blog makes Fairbanks sound like a desolate wasteland. Maybe that’s because I post mostly during winter.

Either way, they liked it. Here’s the highlights:

* I played nine holes from 10 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. on Fort Wainwright with my dad (the course was closed, and we played it for free). I forget the score. I remember landing a 3 wood shot 20 feet from the hole before three-putting for a bogey and the light of the sun setting over Birch Hill as we tried to find our drives from the No. 18 tee box.

* We went to the Midnight Sun Game. We found a baseball in the street (presumably from batting practice) as we approached the park, which we later marked with the date, game score and our signatures. We sat next to a middle-aged couple from Alabama and traded SEC barbs with them, though all five of us were united in telling the people standing on the dugout to sit down -- again and again.

* We drove to Chatanika and Angel Rocks and had drinks at the Big I (where dad played pull tabs, our version of scratch-off tickets) and the Boatel. We went to the Midnight Sun Festival and munched on kettle corn while watching a 3-on-3 basketball tournament.

The next morning, we hopped on a train to Denali National Park. The track cuts through the Nenana Gorge, one of my favorite sights from the Parks Highway that’s even more breathtaking from the train. This photo does it no justice.

At Denali, we met up with my friend Heidi, who won my folks over in about 3 seconds. Especially because she took us to see sled dogs.

A hiking guide at the park, she was awesome enough to give us a walking tour off the clock and tell me what plants were edible. I ate a lot during that walk.

The next day, we were up at the break of dawn (3:30 a.m.) to catch an eight-hour bus tour into the park. Luckily, we were on the right side of the bus, from where all the wildlife was easily visible. The people on the left were ticked.

It was a nice day, and Denali (aka Mount McKinley) was in clear sight the whole time. That’s rare, and we took advantage with loads of pictures. Most people who come to the park don’t get to see Denali, and if you’re one of the majority, feel free to cut and paste your head(s) over this:

We got better views of the mountains later, as we took a flying tour of the Alaska Range. I believe my initial reaction was mouthing the words “holy s---” to my mom as she snapped away with her telephoto lens.

We landed in Talkeetna and stayed there for two days. There’s not much in Talkeetna, but we found a startup brewery that served $3 pints of Alaska-made beers. That’s the best deal in the state. I can’t even get a Molson for less than $3.50 in Fairbanks.

Properly fueled, we tromped around the quaint little town, seeing some bald eagles as we strolled along a four-wheeler path along the railroad tracks.

The free time led mom and I to experiment with her tricked-out camera. We tried to find the best use for the wide-angle lens. This was my favorite:

We caught a train to Anchorage and grabbed a rental car to Girdwood, where we crashed at a nice little B&B and did some hiking.

The B&B owner told us of a nice, easy hike up Mount Alyeska. Her husband sometimes takes the hard way up, a path near the ski lift, which she called “completely crazy.” We wanted to take the easy way, but accidentally ended up being completely crazy. My legs were killing me, so I can’t imagine how my fiftysomething parents were faring.

There were many rests, including a conversation with a woman who casually talked about a black bear chasing tourists down the mountain a few days earlier; I’m glad we didn‘t know about that earlier.

Here we are at the top, tuckered and accomplished.

Later on, mom and I hoofed it to a hand-powered pulley bridge. I helped about five loads of people across before we went halfway out and back. It was a long way down to the river, and there was only metal grating between us and the drop. Freakin’ cool.

Dad’s got a bum leg, so he stayed behind after the uber-hike up Alyeska. He surprised us halfway back. “I figured I’d never get to see a hand bridge if I didn‘t do it now,” he said. Take note: That’s the spirit you should bring to Alaska.

On my final day, we drove to Whittier, where the only route is a one-way tunnel that is also used by trains. You have to enter and exit at scheduled times. We entered at 8:15 a.m.

From the docks at Whittier, we jumped aboard a six-person boat for Gerry Sanger’s Sound Eco Adventures, a daylong tour of wildlife and glaciers. It was a brisk, 60-degree day, and we got to see just about every checklist animal there was in Prince William Sound: otters, seals, humpback whales and bald eagles.

Gerry took us out to the terminal moraine of the Yale Glacier, a massive wall of ice that made violent noises as it receded in the summer sun. We saw several large, calving chunks crash into the water as we sipped coffee to combat the chill of the 36-degree water. We were a quarter-mile away from the glacier, but the moraine was so tall that it looked like we could touch it from the boat.

Hell yes.

I left that night on a flight from Anchorage. I could see Denali from the window. Still incredible.

Mom and dad continued, kayaking with an impromptu marriage proposal, bike riding with an impromptu moose, sampling more Alaska beer and other adventures. Ask them about it. It’s worth it.

The best part of my folks’ visit was that I got to combine both of my existences. For 10 days, my Florida life and my Alaska life were simply my life. Now, when I tell dad about how the greens stole 5 strokes from a nine-hole round, he can relate, and when I tell my mom that I’m heading north to Cleary Summit, she knows the way.

Something a-Brewin'

2009-07-15T00:39:00.000-07:00

My calves are sore from hiking 11 miles. I'm sweltering in a house that doesn't have air conditioning or proper ventilation -- it only has heat and insulation -- because 85 degrees at 11 p.m. was not in the minds of the builders of my home nor those who funded its construction. I have to wake up at 8 a.m. to attend Native games.

I guess I've become a bit Alaskan -- maybe.

Then again, there are days when I could not feel more out of place. The days when I talk to the hunters, self-made adventurers and free spirits who roam this great land. I feel I'm not doing enough. I haven't seen the edge of the world; I just know what it looks like.

And that's fine. I can't shoot things, and I'm not much of a fisherman. I've gotten by with wits rather than grit, and I suppose thats just my way. Alaska's an outdoorsman's haven, an journeyman's requiem and a entrepreneur's gamble. I don't fit in any of these scenarios.

But there is one passion I can share with the people of this beautiful state: beer. Sweet, lip-smacking beer.

I dare say I've never tasted anything like the concoctions they brew up here. While most stray toward IPA-ish, alcohol-stingy bitterness to ward off winter's bite, there's brews for all palates.

Thusly inspired, I began brewing my own beer.

Thanks to some help from American Homebrewers Association gold medal-winner Geoff Hall and and Awsome Man (sic) Brian Martin, I'm on my third batch.

I began with some halfhearted online research an a quick perusal of prices and equipment at Gold Hill Liquor, the only homebrew supply store within 350 miles of Fairbanks. It's quaint shop in the hippie enclave of Ester, a few miles east of town. There I met Susan, proud extract brewer and wife of the head of Zymurgists Borealis -- the only brew club in the Interior.

Geoff pointed me in the right direction with some book suggestions, and Brian has supplied me with invaluable troubleshooting and esteem-building.

I believe I described my work best to Geoff at 4:42 a.m. via Facebook message:

Batch 1:

A kit brew that was supposed to replicate Newcastle, it came out too alcohol-ey for what I wanted a nut brown to be. Still, it got rave reviews from folks at our Memorial Day BBQ (called the Bob-O-Que after its host) and I've come to love it as a writer loves his dyslexic son. It's my first born, even if it was pre-packaged and can't-miss.

Plus, the kid can read better now. It's ripened well after a month and is best served warm in a huge glass. The mondo-sized mugs from Wal-Mart are a perfect vehicle.

Batch 2:

Another kit brew that said "Mexican cerveza" on the can, though everyone tells me that's redundant (they forget there's this lovely country named Spain and about two dozen other independent states that speak its language).

It was horrible 17 days after bottling. Way too sweet and a syrupy mouthfeel. Then I went on vacation with my parents. Upon return, the extra 10 days paid dividends. The flavors are milder and it's best when poured directly in the center of an upright glass.

As for the third, it will be ready in a few days. I'm teeming with anticipation.

It's not hard to find good beer up here, mostly because it costs $5 per pint at restaurants and bars. A cheapo beer like PBR is $3/pint, so you might as well get your money's worth. Thus, the supply of quality beers has met our demand.

It's a major part of why I'm proud to be an Alaskan -- even if I am a half-breed.

The docks of the boondocks

2009-05-29T13:40:00.000-07:00

Ktsch!

My foot sunk, and there was snow in my shoe -- again.

I should know that even on May 28 this can happen.

I was halfway up Worthington Glacier on the north side of the Chugach Mountains, and about five minutes earlier, James and I realized that getting up was the easy part. We skidded, crawled and carefully stepped down the slope that provided three footholds: ice, loose rocks or both.

Hey, we weren't going to come this far if we didn't mean to have a little fun, right?

Two days earlier, James and I loaded up his Subaru -- the Jetta's gone, sniffle -- and made wake.

The destination: Valdez, with some detours.

You see, James has this goal to drive all of Alaska's major roadways. There's not that many, so it's pretty feasible. Instead of taking the "quick" way down, a paltry 362 miles down the Richardson Highway, we were going west first to take the entire Denali Highway and then head back on the Rich, thus killing two highways with one trip.

The Denali Highway doesn't need to exist, but I'm glad it does. There's a quicker way to cut from east to the west through Glennallen and there aren't any towns along the Denali Highway, so there's no commercial or governmental reason for it.

Once a trail that connected mines and their surrounding communities to the rest of the world, the road seems to have no other purpose than to get hunters, fishers and sightseers to the Alaska Range.

The choice to take the long way to Valdez was apparently the right one. It was the first time I'd ever been through the Tri-Valley area on a clear day.

More luck arrived in Cantwell as we found a Fairbanks-based racer who was brining his car home. I was taking a picture of his ride when I hear from behind me "Want to get one with you in it?"

Yes, yes I do.

Then it was off to the mostly gravel Denali Highway, 136 miles of slow going that you wouldn't want to blow through anyway.

We found a cool lodge along the way that just opened. The young man that was taking care of the place invited us in for coffee and we took in the view.

There was a more commercial establishment along the McClaren River. We didn't stop in, but we said hi to the bear outside.

Then came McClaren Summit, the second highest highway pass in Alaska. (We'd already been through the highest, Atigun Pass, on our way to Deadhorse.) It was about 4,000 feet up.

The road was surrounded by glacial features like kettle lakes and expansive riverbeds with just a trickle of a stream flowing through it. The most apparent glacial impressions on the ground were eskers, mounds of dirt and silt left behind when glaciers melt.

The road even swerved atop an esker for a stretch.

Then it was down the Rich to Valdez through Thompson Pass, which is famous for being so hard to keep clear during snowy months. It wasn't as tough a ride as I had expected, even at night.

Welcome to Valdez, where the sky isn't the limit because it doesn't exist.

Valdez -- in all its foggy, rainy splendor -- is a charming little port city that has, in true Alaska fashion, boomed and busted several times over. This is apparent to any visitor because the history of the town can be boiled down to three main events.

1) The creation of a road to Fairbanks. It took a long time to find a suitable route out of the embrace of the Chugach Range. Lots of folks died before Valdez could become a useful port city.

2) The earthquake of 1964. Basically, the town got wiped out and moved to a safer spot on the Port Valdez shores.

3)The Exxon-Valdez oil spill. The pipeline brought a boom to the city, then the tanker spill brought a cleanup effort that shot the city's population to about 10,000.

The sleepy fishing community is now about 5,000 people strong, has no stoplights and, even without crosswalks, I never had to yield to traffic when crossing the street. The only time Valdez gets packed is when the cruise ships drop off a batch of tourists for a few hours.

These things were discussed at length by our guide on a glacier cruise. I was half listening, half checking out all the animals like humpback whales ...

sea lions ...

puffin ...

and bald eagles.

There were some interesting ice floes and otters that I can't show you because my camera battery died. I was saving my last shot for the Columbia Glacier. Unfortunately, this is as close as we could get to it:

After hardly eating on the seven-hour cruise, James and I dove into a deep-dish pizza that carried an entire slaughterhouse of meat. We could only muster two slices apiece, and anyone who knows how I eat can attest that's an alarmingly low number of slices.

We washed the pizza down with some beers at the Landshark -- OK, so we pre-washed the pizza down with a few beers, too -- and crashed at the hotel.

On our way back, we got to see Keystone Canyon in the daylight.

There were some cool waterfalls with generic names like "Bridal Veil Falls" and "Horsetail Falls" because, well, guess what they looked like?

Then came Worthington Glacier. There's a gravel path that starts alongside the viewing area and takes you to the ice on a narrow hump of rocks and silt. When that ended, we kept going.

There was crevice that we couldn't see the bottom of. James dropped a pebble in, and we didn't hear it hit anything.

And well, you know how that ended. The hike kind of drained us, and we cruised through an unexpectedly scenic Richardson to Delta Junction. Though we did stop to check out probably the most fertile-looking valley I'd ever laid eyes upon.

All in all, a win.

I'm just glad to be home, where the speed limits are in multiples of five.

The yearly rediscovery of that weird, bright dot in the sky

2009-04-02T14:13:00.000-07:00

As it so happens, 9 a.m. is a morning hour. An eat-your-oatmeal-and-read-the-news kind of hour. I forget this every year.

From mid-November through February, 9 a.m. seems more like 5 a.m. to me -- the time when no one arises natually. An hour to battle your alarm clock.

My late-night job doesn't help matters. Because I go to bed at 2:30 every morning, I really shouldn't be getting up so early. But up I am, with or without blackout curtains.

It's just more evidence to support that I am a creature of the sun's habits. I grew up walking barefoot to the beach. It's in my nature to be powered by warmth and light and such.

So March is always a fun month in Fairbanks. We're getting more than 13 hours of light now, and there's much to do.

The World Ice Art Championships came back. Here's the winner:

And the favorite in my heart:

James got the ingenious idea to make a King Kong sculpture look even bigger by taking a shot from the ground about 10 feet away. He had to lay in the snow to get this:

People were staring. We didn't care.

The ice park has tons of interactive sculptures, mazes and slides. They're aimed to amuse kids. That didn't stop us.

I waited in line with 5- to 11-year-old kids to go down a slide. One boy's mother accompanied him in line, shoved him off and turned around to exit the adult way. We caught eyes.

"I'm 9," I said with a smile. She quickly exited the slide, possibly to call the authorities.

I had a pretty fun wipeout at the bottom. It must have looked cool. People were concerned.

Can I get a "hell yeah" if you're as lost as I am

There were finally enough hours in the day to take a leisurely hike on the Granite Tors trail about 40 miles outside of town. I'm a heck of a lot better at driving on icy roads now, so getting out there wasn't a problem, unlike last time.

The local grizzlies haven't yet awaken from hibernation, I'm told, but since I was walking alone I wasn't going to chance surprising one. So I sang ... and sang ... and hummed ... and rambled to myself about life ... about death ... about the state of music ... about how much I was rambling.

I exasperated my entire mental Butch Walker catalogue before the going even got rough. Weezer went even quicker. Then Grand Buffet and Astronautilus. Later, pirate songs and Irish drinking tunes gave me a boost.

I was out there for seven hours, just long enough to get to a point where I couldn't find the trail anymore. Finding my way back wasn't a problem; my snowshoes left craters that would give a T-Rex flashbacks.

The first mile is a flat stroll that winds alongside the Chena River's north fork.

Then it goes up a small hill that leads to a flat traverse to another, steeper uphill slope. This curiously painful cycle coninued four or five times.

This is where I thought I was as high as I could go:

And this is as high as I actually went, two hours later -- I was nearly atop the foothill:

In the quarter-mile between hills. I stopped for lunch -- munching on the cheap trail mix you can find in any airport's Hudson News. I love that stuff.

During the lunch break, I somehow found a cell phone signal. I called my mom, who was probably freaked out that I was hiking alone.

It was wonderfully silent. Several times, a king-bed-sized chunk of hard-packed snow would move under me and make a loud groaning sound. I nearly jumped out of my skin every time this happened. But mostly, I heard nothing -- other than my own voice, that is.

When I neared the top, I learned several ways to maneuver uphill in my snowshoes. Naturally pigeon-toed, I discovered the value of pointing your feet outward while climbing a hill. Also, lowering my center of gravity and clawing at the slope seemed to help at some junctures. I fell a few times, only once so awkwardly that I had to remove my snowshoes to get back up.

When I got back, I was bushed ...

... but happy.

The Wind Blows

2009-03-09T00:01:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's a double entendre.

There's a trade-off that gives the frigid outpost of Fairbanks, Alaska, its ability to nestle a reasonably populated American enclave with modern sensibilities.

We take -40 degrees; everyone else takes precipitation and wind. Simple enough.

But you, silly Lower 48ers, you had to have that horrendous cold snap. I'm looking at you, New York, so now we have to endure some actual weather.

For the past few days, we've had about a foot of snow and a whipping breeze to add a little chap to the -10 degree temps. This is a "Hah! So What?" scenario in every other northern city. Not here. There are 50,000 Alaskans freaked out by snowfall right now. It makes no sense.

But enough of the weather. I'd've been outside if it were still the bad side of zero.

Got back on the snowshoeing trails.

My favorite aspect of March up here is the mass of snow atop everything that hasn't moved in five months. Here's a chair on the UAF West Campus trails.

You Conquest (Yukon Quest)

I also love this time of year because the Yukon Quest is back. It finished in Fairbanks this year, which was pretty cool to witness, even though it took some patience.

The end of a 1,000-mile sled dog race is difficult to time. Making matters worse is Eagle Summit -- the steepest and most dangerous traverse on the trail that is shortly followed by another climb, Rosebud Summit -- which is a little more than a day's trip from Fairbanks. The difference between a smooth run over Eagle Summit and one with a few problems can be as long as half a day.

So while it's cooler to catch the end of the race, the start is a bit more fun because, such as 2008's start in Fairbanks, the whole town comes -- on a Saturday with a set beginning time.

Case in point: James and I showed up at the Chena River finish line at 9:30 a.m. -- the frontrunner's earliest estimated finish. He was on a record pace, so we didn't want to miss it if he rewrote the books.

Then we waited, trotting up and down the Chena, keeping out eyes directed east.

Nothing.

I contemplated grabbing a cup of coffee about 10 times, each time resigning myself to the fact that the minute I left, the leader would come roaring 'round the bend.

Around 10:45, Sebastian Schnuelle arrived, early enough for the record.

He was followed by Hugh Neff about 10 minutes later:

Before I finish this part of the story, here's a pup:

Awwww. Next!

Epic Failure at Birch Lake

A buddy of mine who works in the press room, Mark, rented a public-use cabin on the frozen banks of Birch Lake.

It was booked well in advance. We had the cards. We had the beer. We had the guile. We had one heck of a view.

No one showed up, except us and Sam, a photographer, who stayed until 7:30. He had a friend arriving at the airport at 9.

So we took a cruise out on the lake and checked out the ice fishing huts.

And then we drank -- heavily -- and enjoyed the view -- groggily.

We awoke to a refreshing -20 degrees. My car started, somehow.

Make 'Em Say Uhh, Ne-na-na-na

I missed last year's Tripod Days in the tiny town of Nenana, but I wasn't going to skip out on something with my moniker twice. So Joe, Betsy and I cruised down in the Kia.

I don't know why I'm doing the Power Fist there. Just am. Maybe because it's a little bit less aggressive than the Projecting Strength pose. Maybe because I don't have to explain it 20 times a day. Maybe because my earlier Commando pose with Joe was epic enough and I didn't want to tip the balance of a nice day.

Anyhow, Tripod Days is a weekend festival surrounding the raising of a tripod on the Tanana River for the Nenana Ice Classic. The tripod holds a tripwire that's pulled when the ice on the river breaks. People across Alaska place wagers on the minute the wire is tripped (in standard time, not daylight saving, which confuses several people per year).

We walked into the festival. It was just a one-room deal with a bunch of beads and trinkets being sold around a dance floor. There were kids everywhere. Every-where.

It wasn't our scene, so we moseyed across the icy street to the Jester's Corner, where we planned to knock down a few cold ones until the potato race -- just to see what the hell a potato race is.

While tipping back a brew, the locals took kindly to us. One had a batch of moose chili that he couldn't submit for the contest. He was a few minutes too late. We were right on time for free helpings. Mmmm, delicious failure.

The people of Nenana are awesome. I wish it were near Fairbanks, but I guess the fact that it's an hour drive away from the city is what makes the folk so open to visitors. They invited us back. They asked us for weed. They asked if we played guitar (Joe does; I used to a long, long time ago), I said "kind of"and they offered to jam with us, right there at the bar. I didn't -- how do you jam when you know three chords and haven't played them since college?

We headed back to the festival two beers later. What a potato race turned out to be is the most frustrating game on the face of the frozen Earth.

Teams of two must make it back and forth across the dance floor with a potato wedged between their knees. One person crosses the floor and gives the potato to his or her partner, who goes the other way. Exchanging the potato is the ridiculously difficult part. You can't use your hands. Only one group succeeded exchanging and then dropped the potato on the return trip. Joe, Betsy and I giggled on the sidelines, knowing we couldn't do it ourselves.

There was a 40-mile sled dog race each day, which we didn't know was happening until we saw an unexpected dog team coming upriver.

But that was all hubbub leading up to the moment we scooted, slid and stomped across the river to watch the townspeople raise the tripod.

Here's what happens when one great Tripod meets another:

We clashed, but I allowed him to stand.

That's all my adventures as of late.

Grandma: Here's looking at you, kid.

Shifts in Luck & Breaking the Rule: Here's What Happened in Las Vegas.

2009-01-26T22:52:00.000-08:00

You can call it Karma. I do.

The ups and downs of my second winter in Fairbanks are many, and that trend will probably continue.

I go to Las Vegas and leave $80 ahead, but my camera gets stolen a night before I leave.

I miss a week of -40 degree temperatures while in sunny Sin City, but I am sidelined two weeks (including a wonderful three-day stretch of 40 above temps) by bronchitis.

I delve in weekends of drunken revelry followed by limitless and delightful brunches, but it is incurred by a dear friend's departure -- Christi left for Cambodia.

I shoot a 45 at a virtual St. Andrews in the local golf simulator, but ... OK, I'm still waiting for that one to bite me back.

It didn't all start with my Vegas trip, but that's where I'm going to begin for lack of better inspiration.

After a surprise stop in Sonoma Valley, Calif., I landed in Vegas and cabbed it to the timeshare Russ and I would share for the next eight days. I arrived a day ahead of Russ and took the opportunity to do some last-minute grooming. Long story shortened: I cut my own hair these days. I screwed up this time. I had to trim my dome to why-not-just-shave-it-bald? levels and had to do the same with my beard (I'm NOT shaving it until the ice on the Chena River breaks).

I hit the Strip and got several complimentary beers, 15 extra bucks and a small cold from Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay. I discovered there was no open-container law and grabbed some call girl cards from the Hispanic fellows near Paris. Some waitress gives me attitude while serving me an $8 domestic beer, and I gave her a retort that would make a sailor giggle. All in all, success.

Russ arrives. We talk sports, constantly. Gators this. Redskins that. Bucs here. Capitals there. I wouldn't have it any other way. We watched out NFL teams crap out in their season finales and spent an easy night on the Strip before Russ' traveling finally caught up with his stamina.

The highlights are as follows: Hoover Dam; Blue Man Group; an amazing club called Pure where I swear Russ began melting after the third Captain & Coke; my small cold grows into a debilitating illness and my nightly choice becomes "booze or Day-Quil?"; I choose booze every night except New Year's Eve; on the final night of 2008, we watch extreme stunts and a nuclear explosion that turned out to be fireworks; Stratosphere scares the living hell outta me; and my camera got jacked while I was talking to an aggressively unengaging young lady named Miss Vietnam in a strip club. Can't complain, especially because I came out ahead on my gambling.

I doled out the most cash on sports betting. I was there for the New Year's Day bowl games, so I slapped a wager on each game and a few over-unders. My straight-up picks were poor, but I won all the over-unders. I was about 15 bucks behind because the sports books payout is about 90 percent of the original bet -- i.e. $37.62 for a $20 bet -- and I bought a $2 horseracing wager so that my drinks would be free. I never checked to see if my horse won.

My conservative odds playing was good for at least a $20 nightly profit from the slot machines, which made up for a crappy night at O'Shea's blackjack tables. The big bet that put me over the top was an $80 wager on the soon-to-be BCS champions.

Orange! ...

Wish I lived closer to Russ, the sun and towns where they talk for months about that one time it snowed.

This wish is brought to you by the number -49, which was the temperature when I arrived in Fairbanks. The jetway froze, and we weren't allowed to walk outside from the plane to the terminal. They fixed it, which let me and my fellow passengers the luxury of waiting in the lobby as they open the baggage compartment. It had frozen shut -- not uncommon, but quite annoying.

It had been below -35 for seven days by the time I had arrived in Fairbanks, and it would be seven more before the snap was over. Somehow, the Kia started the morning after I returned. It has never sounded so horrible. The ice fog and poor air quality from a town full of drivers leaving their vehicles running at the grocery store turned my cold into bronchitis. I stopped coughing about two days ago.

More later.

:-)

One-way ticket, yeah

2008-12-22T14:38:00.000-08:00

I woke up Thursday morning and spied a neighbor who was checking out my Kia.

He didn't make an offer, but I think he left a pile of what he thought my car was worth somewhere near the driveway.

In summer, the photo ops don't come right to your front door, but that's OK. Getting there is more than half the fun.

Take, for example, the time James and I went to Circle (or as I like to call it "Yukon River 3: This Time It's Personal.")

Circle's a place where shooting at anyone disturbing your sleep is technically illegal but generally overlooked.

The town itself, well, it sucked. There was a kindly couple who ran the local grocery store/gas station/phonebooth. I used a washeteria for the first time (the only spot in town with running water; it's like the prison bathrooms in Riki-Oh: "You can take a (expletive); you can wash your clothes; just do it all in 15 minutes.")

Other than that, the most interesting aspect of Circle was a huge wooden lodge on the banks if the Yukon. It was supposed to be a resort that would pump money into this desolate town of 90 or so redsidents. Instead, its funding was tied to some sort of political scandal, and the lodge, without any wiring or plumbing, was left to rot and sits for sale with a beutiful view of the river.

Just like the Deadhorse trip, the final 40 percent of the drive was seemingly endless. It was like the worlds longest bushwhacked driveway: 100 miles of soft dirt, sharp turns and barely anything to look at.

Before that, though, there was plenty to see and do.

We hit up some spots we recognized along the Yukon Quest such as Eagle Summit, Twelvemile Summit and the steakouse in Central, which has the best steaks in 100 miles -- but that's like being the hottest chick in Deadhorse.

We saw an old gold dredge.

And forged a stream ...

So we could get to a sign that anyone in Alaska should read.

Ah yes, the Adventure Zone. We entered it again in September when James won the right to drive on the Denali Highway. There's a lottery that about 2,000 people win per year to be allowed to do this. James won. We hopped in the Jetta again.

Christi came along.

An amazing feature of Denali is the glacier-made valleys. From afar, they look like enormous rivers, though they're just a long row of anti-scorched earth, ravaged smooth by ice.

We saw Mount McKinley through a light fog. Our cameras didn't.

Oh well, looks like we'll just have to come back.

By the way, the Jetta, our toughest travel companion, took a bit of a bruising when James was driving to Skagway recently. The beloved red one was taken to Whitehorse, where it remains critical condition. I will be pouring a sip of my next beer out to honor my homie VW. I ask you to do the same.

What I does is who I be: Narrative

2008-11-14T00:22:00.000-08:00

The faded carpet in the Frontier Flying gate at the Fairbanks International Airport was -- at some point in the last 30 years -- bright orange. The News-Miner office used to have carpet just like it, installed in the '70s, I'm told.

I had plenty of time to contemplate things like that as I waited through delay after delay from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. There were wind shears over Anchorage that were supposed to die down--any--minute--now, so I patiently soaked in the kitchy surroundings (ooh, a model recreation of a steamboat!), and every 30 minutes I was informed that it would be yet another 30 minutes ... and another ... until my flight would depart.

After a lunch of pocky sticks and whatever was not unappealing in the snack machine, I grew weary and managed to catch a few winks until a fellow passenger, a Nanooks fan on his way down to see the UAF hockey team, roused me and informed me that we were boarding in five minutes.

Quickquickquick. Check your stuff. Voice recorder. Pens. Pencils (It's October; ink freezes every now and then). Paper. Super-versatile clipboard. Both cell phones, work and 941, are they off?

I was parched and still groggy from my nap when I climbed aboard the 20-seater that would hopefully make it all the way to Anchorage.

As the plane descended over the shores of Anchorage, I didn't have that fond yearning feeling I usually get when I see a coast these days. Nope, my sinuses were acting up and I didn't get the sleep I had been hoping for on the flight. I was daydreaming of a Rockstar and some DayQuil like an eighth-grader dreams of saving the day and getting the girl.

As we taxied to the terminal at Ted Stevens International Airport, I chatted with five-time Iditarod winner Rick Swenson about high school football (that was a fun sentence to write).

I checked my cell phone: 3:58 p.m. The first of three games I'm here to cover kicks off in two minutes. So much for caffiene and medicine.

Out of breath from sprinting with my luggage, I hailed a cab. The driver was a Middle Eastern man with a cartoonish accent.

Driver: "Where we go?"
Me: "Anchorage Football Stadium."
Driver: "Ahhhhh, stadium?"
Me: "Yeah, um, Where they play high school football. Anchorage Football Stadium, that's the name of it."
Driver: "OK, OK. We go."

We passed a "Welcome to Alaska" sign as his cell phone rung. He picked it up. Whoever was on the other line was getting his life story. His old home in Arizona. The reasons he moved up here. Why yes, he'd love to move to Kansas. He can cook. Boy did he love to talk about his cooking ("I cook-a for you. I cook for you.").

Holy crap, he was talking to a woman who'd found him on the Internet! Very interesting indeed, but it was 4:17, and I was getting antsy.

He must have noticed me squirming and staring at him in the rear-view mirror. He stopped wooing the woman, who wouldn't give him her phone number, and dialed another number.

"Dispatch? Yes, where is the football stadium? Ah, Anchorage Stadium? Ah..."

The Arizona-born Persian chef had no idea where we were going the whole time!

He was fumbling to describe the place, so I asked for the phone. OK, I said, "Gimme the damn phone," but you get the point.

I gave Top Chef taximan $15 for my $25 ride and didn't ask for a receipt. I arrived halfway through the first quarter -- thankfully not as late as I was expecting -- with ample time before halftime to meet with the media relations person, grab a program with all the team rosters, stow my luggage in the press box and find the Anchorage Daily News writer (Kevin Klott, awesome dude) to let him know that I'll need his stats.

With my brain going a million mph faster than my hands, I took some play-by-play notes from the press box before heading down to the visitors sidelines. On the field, it struck me: The scene was unbelievable.

Directly behind the press box was a row of mountains the likes of which I hadn't seen since driving the Alaskan Highway. Only this time, there was a football game in front of it. If the game was Florida-FSU, it would have been official: The plane had crashed and I am in heaven.

Otherwise, the game was, well, like every other game I'd seen this season. In Alaska football, a pass is considered a trick play. The season's too short for a quarterback and his receivers to smooth out any timing issues. Thus, these kids are the perfect players to receive a scholarship to Brown in 1904.

The winners preened; the losers bawled like someone just hit their puppy with a Honda Civic. And so forth.

When Game 1 was over (the Interior guys lost), I hustled to the Sullivan Arena across the street, where there was a collge hockey tournament that allowed me in for free to use the building's WiFi. There were five wireless servers available. Only one worked -- very slowly at that.

I had a window of about 50 minutes between games, not enough time to write a full story with quotes and such. I might have been able to squeeze a total story in, actually, but the connection was so slow that e-mailing the story was a 20-minute ordeal. So I knocked out a few paragraphs for the Web site and scooted back to the sidelines for Game 2. The visitors were once again the Interior team, which was helpful since I like to stand on the guest sidelines to be close to the marking sticks.

The game kicked off around dusk, which with the aformentioned scenery was another truly majestic moment. Game 2 featured the Interior team I was banking on for another trip to Anchorage for the championship game next week. They lost a heartbreaker.

Too bad, so sad. I'd been talking to kids fresh off season-ending losses for weeks, so I was becoming immune to the teary-eyed musings of swollen-muscled young men. I put my game face on, the understandingly soft, contemplative look I usually reserve for people who tell me how afraid they are of Obama, and headed into the blubbering mass of humanity that once was a football team.

Only -- it got to me this time. These kids were upset in ways I hadn't seen outside of funerals and breakups, falling to their knees and such. That outpouring combined with the salty reek of postgame jerseys made it hard to keep from welling up a bit. Some of it was comically gratuitous, too, so refraining from chuckling also proved to be a chore.

So there I was, cutting through a circle of depressed 18-year-olds, fighting the forces of my own sentimentality.

Quotes, written in my huge illegible scrawl, were soon ready on my notepad, and I jogged to Sullivan Arena. It was 10:45 p.m. when I opened my laptop. At 11:05, I hit "send" for the finished Game 1 story.

Oh, crud. My bag was in the press box.

I made a wedge with my forearms and hustled through the crowd, now departing from the hockey tournament. I sprinted across the parking lot that separated the venues, dodging SUVs that had "Go Wildcats!" and "#34! GATA!" written on the windows. A few times, I came close to becoming a window dressing myself.

Press box -- locked. The guy with the keys -- gone. My second story -- not yet started. My deadline -- 25 minutes.

I sprinted back, nearly avoiding death by SUV a several more times. I filed my story five minutes past deadline, which was about 10 minutes earlier than I had feared I would.

Danny Martin, a fellow N-M sports writer who was covering the hockey tournament, and I split a cab to the hotel.

No restaurants were open nearby, so I dialed up Pizza Hut. Large, pinappley goodness was on its way. It cost $22, which probably seems horrendous to anyone reading this in the Lower 48. Honestly, the girl on the phone could have said $100. I'd have paid it. I hadn't eaten for 13 hours, and my wind sprints in the parking lot didn't help matters.

Waiting for lunch/dinner to come. I watched "Survivorman" feast on bugs in Africa. I cranked up the volume to drown out the couple in the adjacent room, who were drunk and hurling swear words at each other. I had just finished folding my clothes so they'd be presentable the next day (my clothes, toothbrush, deoderant were all safely hidden in a press box about two miles away), so I answered the pizza man's knock in boxers and a T-shirt.

I didn't even look at the TV while I ate. My eyes were fixated on the wall, in its gloriously one-coat-painted state, and though of nothing. Just truly blanked out.

Was I ready to do it again tomorrow? I'm never ready, but I do it anyway.

The Fake Sound of Progress

2008-11-06T00:36:00.000-08:00

This blog shouldn't have lasted two weeks.

The premise was simple, a daily account of a boy and his Kia through the terrible expanse of concrete and gravel between Bradenton, Fla., and Fairbanks, Alaska.

That was supposed to be the end.

But the story of a 10-day trip became the monthly adventures of that same boy in his Box, bravely (and sometimes savagely) fighting the perils of sub-zero cold and confined spaces.

Then summer came, and adventure followed ... and the blog fell behind because writing it required staying inside for more than 15 minutes. Only sleeping would bring me out of the sun for that long, and I didn't even do much of that.

So, lagging on the blog, I found a reasonable place to end it: the trip to the Arctic. What better way to end "the Diagonal" than with a story that finally completes the journey, going from the Atlantic to the Arcitc. The symmetry was there, and the story felt done.

It was supposed to end there.

And yet here I am.

It turns out I had the gusto for a Diagonal resurrection all along. Here's something I wrote last July and never posted. I'd forgotten about it until now:

I pull onto the short stretch of Johansen Expressway between Peger Road and University, merge into this town's laughable excuse for "traffic" and crank up the CD player to counter the whoosh of wind through the open window. The sun makes my skin feel warm and alive, and the natural light spashes off the pavement, making everything look whitewashed for a moment.

There are moments like this when I forget I've left Florida.

Right on University Avenue. Bump-ka-chunk over the train tracks and another right into a parking lot -- where even though the snow is gone and the lines for parking spots can be seen, people still pay no attention to them.

After a quick nod to the cashiers at Gulliver's Bookstore, I take the stairs three at a time to the Second Story Cafe, where I overpay for a bagel sandwich and make up for it with a few free cups of coffee.

This is where I do a lot of the writing for the Diagonal, away from the TV and other temptations. It's got free WiFi and, most importantly, an ouside deck that opens in the summer.

It was here that I strung together the account of my first night in Fairbanks -- after a failed attempt at a fantasy football draft -- and the place seems to be the only area where the standard rules of time apply.

Like the deck I'm sitting on now, the rest of Fairbanks seems to have opened up for the summer. Restaurants' tables spill out to the sidewalks and rooftops. Cyclists coast by on every street. Kids play in open lots and empty parking lots.

Hell, I'm even happy to see the swarming packs of tourists crossing downtown streets en masse with no regard for traffic. I'm used to dodging that; it beats the hell out of black ice.

So it doesn't seem like I've been here for a year, because I've only lived in this town for two months. I don't know what happened to that other barren, frozen outpost in the Tanana Valley desert, but it's not anywhere near here.

New home. New job. But the lag in posts stays the same.

Yup, I'm a sportswriter now. A sportswriter who lives in a 2 1/2-story house. In my last post I was still a lonely copy editor in a one-room efficiency so small that I once tripped at the door, fell through the living room and landed in the kitchen. How did I pull off such a meteoric rise? In one month, no less?

To be honest. I barely did a dang thing. I took the job when it opened at at desk not 5 feet to my left (sadly due to the loss of Adam to the Ashtabula Star-Beacon), and my new roommate/landlord, Lisa, offered me a better price than what I was paying at The Box without even knowing my lease was expiring.

And what a place it is:

I gotta tell you: Do nothing in life; it works wonders.

So please pardon my lack of posting, but I'm truly not sorry for it this time around. Why would I be inside typing on my laptop when I could be outside in the sunlight? At any time?

Honestly, there was 21 hours of daylight in June (it's now down to about 19), and even when the sun is down, there's still enough light to do just about anything. I've been getting out of work at 1 a.m., driving to Lathrop High School and running laps at the track without any artificial lights. I've killed time through the sundown hours watching a movie and driven to the overlook south of Fox and watched the sun come up at 3 a.m.

And I can enjoy all this glorious vitamin D in my backyard. That's right, I got one of those, too. Check it out:

It's been put to good use. Those hammocks are my standard lounging spot for reading, and, as proven on the Fourth of July, the place is AOK for BBQ.

That's mes amis (from top) Christi, Betsy and Joe enjoying my awesome place and crying on the inside because they'll go return to their one-story pads later.

Well, see you in a month? Hopefully sooner. Though that's up to me, I suppose.

That last line's a hoot ain't it?

Stay tuned. In the past three months, I've made a return trip to the Yukon River, delved into the heart of Denali National Park and paced the sidelines of a football field with glorious mountains providing the backdrop to a hellish Anchorage-a-thon.

I've got the fuel. I've got the nerve. I've almost got the wit to pull this off one more time.

View from the top

2008-06-17T02:06:00.000-07:00

UPDATE #1: Check out James' Flickr photostream for more pictures and commentary while I wrestle with uploading huge photo files while sharing bandwidth with my roomate.

Ummm ... dad, care to put in for a transfer?

At this point, with the road still well-paved, these curves looked inviting.

My second trip to the Yukon River. It's a bit bigger here than in Whitehorse.

Ladies and gents, the Yukon River airport -- with a runway so close to the highway they stop traffic so planes can land.

Theses are the brave souls who took the plunge in the Arctic Ocean. The two on the right are the ones who went topless.

Waaaaay in the distance is Finger Rock. Waaaaaay not in the distance is my finger. Just so you can tell the difference.

About three hours into the trip, there's ice on the side of the road. It is June 9. What the heck am I doing living up here.

Gobblers Knob. Tee hee.

Ah, Atigun Pass. I don't know when this picture was taken, but I can assure you it was no more than 30 seconds before or after I yelled an expletive while trying to keep the Jetta on the road and out of a semi truck.

Here's what the Arctic Circle sign looks like from the back.

Though we saw plenty of caribou, this picture at Prudhoe Bay is the only proof.

Hello, Mr. Cheney. By the way, the pink flamingo at the bottom is one of nine that can be found above the Arctic Circle on the Dalton Highway. Yup, a place so desolate they feel sorry for the tourists who have nothing to do and give them a scavenger hunt.

It's a bit hard to see here, but these trees have little or no leaves or bristles until the top. They reminded us of the Lorax.

Haul Road Rookies

2008-06-13T01:54:00.000-07:00

"It's like the end of the world."

James couldn't have said it any better as we barreled through the foggy North Slope, a place only Siberia tops as the essence of barren tundra. It had been three hours since the landscape had turned into something that surprisingly reminded me of the Everglades -- flat land, steam rising from wet, boggy grounds and no signs of life besides the chunky gravel road hardly wide enough to allow two 18-wheelers to pass each other.

We were growing impatient waiting for Deadhorse to appear through the fog, which grew so dense that 100 yards is a generous estimate of what I could see.

"Dead caribou," James noted, looking out the window.
"It's a suburb," I joked, certain that I was the only person within 100 miles who found it funny.

The top of the world, almost. The end of the world, indeed.

After all, as I sat in the dining hall of our oil workers' hostel/tourists' hotel at 4 a.m. (with the sun high in the sky), the news blared catastrophe.

Oil prices killing the economy. Climate change bringing doom. And there I was, at the source of 5 percent of America's oil and within sight of polar ice -- Kilometre Zero of our biggest crises -- loading up on doughnuts and lemon tea.

This was a vacation, but Deadhorse is no tourist destination. It tolerates its role as one of the few road-acessible towns on the Arctic Ocean. The only welcome mat laid out is a free map that you can grab from a box clipped to a gas station sign. The buildings have few, if any, markings. There's not even a sign that says you're in Deadhorse (then again, where else would you be).

Though the locals are friendly and the hotel manager is kind, I couldn't help but feel that James and I were a silly nuisance to the mining encampment that calls itself a town.

Still, Deadhorse was only where we had to stop; the journey there was the thing.

***

After securing a satellite phone, we shot toward the Steese Highway, sending final phone calls and text messages. We exploded out of the Tanana Valley. I hardly remember passing Fox and the gold mines on the Elliott Highway. Just past the Hilltop Restaurant, the farthest I had ever ventured before, I unsheathed my camera and snapped away. I was in the passenger's seat and enjoying a ride through the mountains without having to worry about, you know, avoiding death and all.

Alleviating more worry was that we weren't in my car. James was good enough to sacrifice his Jetta for the trip. Loaded down with gear and gas cans, we tried to minimize the damage to his car.

Of course, minimizing the damage is a rough task when you reach the Dalton Highway. It greets you with a kindly yellow sign that declares "PAVEMENT ENDS." Four hundered miles from Deadhorse, this sign was the perfect way to say "Y'all sure you're ready for this?"

The Dalton Highway, also known as Haul Road, is an enigma covered in gravel, dirt and pothole-scatterd pavement. It's liable to change surfaces, hit steep grades and wind sharply without so much as a traffic cone. Add a gorgeous view that tempts your gaze and about 160 semi trucks to dodge. In all, driving it is like dating a crazy woman: You need a cool head, patience and restraint from staring at beautiful objects.

And beautiful does not aptly describe what lies along the road. It begins with green, rolling hills and soft lush valleys occasinally scorched by forest fires. It then transforms into ice-patched, rocky cliffs that loom over deep blue lakes and rivers with hints of whitewater.

We hit our first wave of Alaska mosquitoes when we stopped at the Yukon River crossing. At least 20 would fly into the car at every stop, and I amused myself by hunting them down. They were crafty, flying into the crevice between the dashboard and the windshield. One even got me to stub my finger on the windshield. He was a worthy adversary, and he died with honor.

At the Arctic Circle, I could once again feel my latitude. It’s hard to describe, but there are times that I realize geographically where I am and feel like I’m about to get slung off the Earth. We are not heading North; we are heading Frighteningly North.

Of course, our latitude wasn’t as jarring as our plunge down Beaver Slide, a hill that basically drops you from the top and greets you with a large, unmarked dip in the road at the bottom. James hit his head on the roof as the Jetta went airborne.

We stopped in Coldfoot to refuel both the car and ourselves. The red Jetta was already a light brown color everywhere below a diagonal line that went from the top of the tail lights to the peak of the front wheel base.

James handed me they keys as we finished our buffet lunch/dinner. Here goes nothin'.

As I expected, there was an accident less than 10 minutes after I took the wheel. As I didn't expect, we werent involved. James spotted a truck flipped onto its side. It was deserted but full of personal items. We called the troopers with the sat phone and continued.

The truck had a Florida lisence plate. Dang Floridians, don't they know to stay on the flatlands.

Odd names abound beyond the Arctic Circle. Rivers have sequels (Jim River 3), the Highway has traverses like Oil Spil Hill and Ice Cut and, well, there's a place called Gobbler's Knob. Also, the North Slope's Happy Valley looks like the most depressing place on this planet.

We stopped to see the farhtest north spruce tree. Despite a large sign saying not to chop it down, there were axe marks that made a ring several inches deep near the base of the tree. Also, it was grey and dead. I guess they'll have to move that sign someday.

Less than 5 minutes later came Atigun Pass, where the highway cuts throught the Brooks Range, and rain decided to join the party. The following hour was a constant barrage of near-death experiences and pothole-swerving.

By the time the mountains smoothed out into rolling hills, I was driving in video-game mode: dodge this, miss that and don't let your health meter get low. It was a hell of a challenge. I loved it.

***

I returned from my early-morning snack to find James as sick as a dog. I let him be and watched "Broken Arrow" and CNN until it was time for our tour of the oil fields. I checked on him once more, but the whole point of touring the oil fields was to jump in the Arctic Ocean. If James did that, he might have vaporized.

So I strolled solo over to the tour lobby and met my fellow travelers. They were from a UAF group that has camped south of town to do Arctic research the past week. It was made of students from universites worldwide, so there were plenty of differing personalities. I fit right in with them -- to the point that I didn't respond when the tour guide asked if we were all from UAF. Why bother?

The oil field tour was a bit dull. It started with a video about the great work of BP and Phillips Alaska and how there might be work on a natural gas line coming soon. Yup 2003 looks to be a promising year. The guide was a grizzled vet of the North Slope who, bless his heart, loved what he was talking about, but couldn't say anything interesting. He even mentioned his 401(k) plan.

We hopped on a small bus and took a tour of Deadhorse, but we were all there for one thing, the ocean. The bus pulled up to the shore and we nervously walked to the waterline, noticing that the ice had only receded about a mile offshore.

Oh well. Two Swedish women were the first to go in, topless -- which is brave in more ways than one on a 41-degree day. A trio of college-aged girls followed in their underwear. I had a bathing suit with me but decided it was "go" time and ran toward the water in my long underwear, yelling, "I'm from Florida! What the hell am I doing?"

The water was only knee-deep after the first 10 yards, so I flopped on my belly to do a full plunge. It was co-o-o-o-ld. I couldn't feel the pebbly coast under my feet until I dried off.

***

The way back was mercifully uneventful. The three things I wanted to avoid: a crash, falling asleep and jostling James enough to amplify whatever was ailing him. I was in video-game mode the entire time.

As the car rolled onto the Johansen Expressway in the middle of Fairbanks, I couldn't tell if we had conquered Deadhorse or the other way around.

But we came and we saw, and two out of three ain't bad.

Left foot, right foot

2008-05-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

I feel … corrected?

Not in the way that I correct grammar for a living. No, it’s like the way you correct a shot of espresso with a shot of ouzo.

For quite some time, I’ve confined myself to the city limits -- maybe venturing as far out as Fox, but never straying too far from that highway.

But today, I knocked the dust offa my hiking shoes and got the hell away from Fairbanks for a bit.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m taking baby steps in these hiking shoes. I took Chena Hot Springs Road to the Angel Rocks loop trail, a 3.5-mile hilly walk that is a staple of the local hiking scene. It certainly made me feel novice as I passed 18-year-old kids who earlier were blasting bad punk music in the parking lot.

Still, I managed to tromp down some rocky side paths and satisfy my urge for forsaking the main trail. A little detour I took led me to the left of a cave at the top of Angel Rocks while the main trail veered to the right, but I found markers quickly after and began following down the opposite side.

I was a bit apprehensive taking this path, though. The loop trail branches out to a 8.9-mile hike to Chena Hot Springs in the middle, and it wasn’t clear which path I was on.

It wasn’t a big deal. There was a family camping at the top so I could easily get help if I injured myself, and I had about six hours until the 10:45 p.m. sunset so I wasn’t short on time. With that in mind, I bounded down the hill, skidding on my heels and bracing myself on any tree limb in arm’s reach.

About 30 minutes later, I was becoming pretty dehydrated. My 1.5 liter of Aquafina was finished by the time I had reached the top, and it wasn’t going to satisfy my thirst much longer. So I pulled an about face and killed my calves on the steep return climb.

Naturally, When I reached the top, I noticed that had I gone to the right side of the cave I would have seen a sign telling me that I was on the correct path all along. Oh well.

The drive out there was something in itself. I’m no road warrior, but I do enjoy the occasional several-thousand-mile cruise. The minute I got more than 10 miles out of town, I reverted back to my Diagonal self, doing things like stopping and snapping odd pictures:

Like I said, corrected.

Ugh, wha' happened?

2008-03-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

When people ask me what’s going on, I only have one response.

“Everything and nothing at all.”

It’s not a smarmy thing. I honestly try to think of something new, but I’m tired of talking about the weather. There’s a lot happening in my life, but it all really amounts to boring details that I'll try to keep to a minimum.

Here’s my April:

A shorn-chin lad just followin' the fad

As intended, the final picture of the post a month ago was supposed to be a cliffanger and -- at least for my mom -- a "holy sh**" moment.

Well, it was, but I didn't mean to leave the final note hanging out there that long. It's become an annoying screech that I semi-subdued with an updated Facebook picture. But to give y'all the whole story: I went from this:
To this the next day: To the infamous fu man chu the next (including time at work): Gave the Super Mario 'stash about five minutes: And now I'm rocking the burns, as usual: Because if you're gonna shave your beard, have some fun with it.

The main reason for my latest absence was my trip to Florida in mid-April.

If I didn't see you, I'm sorry, but I crammed as much into those 10 days as possible. Not to mention cramming as much beer down my gullet as possible.

And somewhere along the way, I wrote this while waiting for a plane to pick me up in Atlanta:

***

’Cause we don’t believe in filler, baby. But there ain’t anything wrong with fillin’ up

This post is brought to you by the letter P.

P is for Pepto Bismol.

Specifically the three doses creeping toward my gastric organs as I balance the laptop atop my bloated belly in the Atlanta airport.

Russ just dropped me off from too much food and too little conversation (never enough) at the ESPN Zone. Russ is my eternal sports-talk buddy. The Armageddon could be happening, and we’d find a way to talk about how it affects Mon Williams’ chances of proving himself as a between-the-tackles back.

And dinner didn’t last long enough for us to get past Gators football, so even though I’d scarfed down a mondo philly steak and baked potato, dessert was in order.

We traded opinions on the upcoming NBA playoffs as we pecked at what remained of a ice cream-topped brownie made to serve four. The tight pain just above my obliques was certainly worth the chat. We talked for two hours about things that weren’t really that important, and I couldn’t have enjoyed myself more.

As an experienced glutton, I knew I could bust out a few stretches and push through with a few thousand more calories, but dusk came and it was time to head home.

I had a harder time force-feeding myself the idea that this trip was going to go off without a hitch. When it comes to social atrophy, I’m a hypochondriac. It’s been a few months since I’ve hung out with friends on a regular basis, and I was worried I’d lost touch with the jokey, interesting Josh with the sharpened wit.

But so far, so good. I’m not even done flying and I’m having an awesome time.

Well, what I’m doing in Alaska is experimenting with new beats and textures and … and …

These posts are yours.

In late March, I finally took a camera with me on a stroll through Creamer’s. The whole experience of documenting what I’ve already seen got me pondering my motives for being in Alaska.

Are my reasons professional? Partly. Isolated from the chilly front of economic depression that’s engulfing most newspapers, the News-Miner is really the only game in Northern Alaska.

Are they selfish? Certainly. I’m 23 and not caring about the fate of another soul on Earth. I’m seeing what I want to see, dang it, and you should be happy just to get pictures.

I moved up here because it was the best choice among Wyoming, Utah and Alaska.

I moved up here because I’m unchained to any geographic location, and very few people have the opportunity to just get up and go as far as possible.

But those are all reasons that would have led me to Alaska at the age of 22. All things told, I decided to move here when I was 7 and looked at a map, saw Baffin Island all the way up at the top and wondered what life was like up there. Not just how people got by, not just what the place looked like or how cold it got -- but how it actually felt to live there, to wake up and accept an Arctic setting as your surroundings without a second thought.

I’m nowhere near Baffin Island, but I think I’m finding the answers here.

And so much with that … the times, they were a’changin’, but now they’re just a’going.

***

Since my return, I’ve returned to my standard six-day schedule at the News-Miner, and -- despite the serious health risks -- I’m not letting that seventh day be for rest. It’s not like I can get much shut-eye anyway.

The sun is out 17 hours a day. Sleeping in isn’t a problem, but getting to bed before 2 is starting to become impossible. It’s not much of a hassle since I work until 1, but on my days off, it’s become awkward to enter my place while it's still daylight and tell myself, “OK, that’s it for today.”

What I need is some blackout curtains, but I’ve gotta wait to move into my new place first.

Oh yeah, the Box era is over.

It’s been good to me, but I can’t say I’ll miss those four walls after an Alaskan winter surrounded by them. I’m headed to the other side of the Chena River to live with a friend I met at the Big I.

At the request of my parents, here’s a final look at the Box …

Seeing as I have proper weekends now, I'll be posting again quite soon.

Que pasa?

2008-03-26T19:38:00.001-07:00

Much. Let's get to it.

Outhouse races, beer and "Oh yeah, I live in Alaska"

My last post was created about 20 minutes before I ventured to Chatanika Days with James and Christi. Chatanika is about 40 minutes northwest of town, but worth the drive for one event: outhouse racing.

James drove, which is good because we passed some awesome scenery and I would have rubber-necked us off a cliff. It's still amazing to me how you can drive 15 minutes out of Fairbanks and be dang near the middle of nowhere.

We assumed we had arrived when both shoulders of the road were lined with parked cars. We walked down to the Chatanika Lodge, the only building in sight (in fact, I don't recall seeing a road other than the highway we arrived on), and got a prime spot for the second heat of outhouse races.

The outhouses were set on skis and had pushbars on both ends. A person had to sit in the loo while four others shoved it down the highway (which doubled as the race track -- you can close off the only road into town when there's outhouse races, who would pass through and miss them?). One clever group attached a harness to its outhouse and had a runner pull from the front.

There was a slight s-curve at the end of the 100-meter-or-so track, and many outhouses toppled or went veering into the crowd. Because the right side of the curve was prime a prime target for out-of-control toilets, there were plenty of open spots along its edge. We took front row there.

Beers in hand, we whooped as the ouhouses skidded by. I was horribly underdressed and ended up with some grotesquely chapped lips, but it was all well worth it.

James and I were pondering joining the human bowling competition until we found out it was a parent-child activity. We were expecting to belly-flop ourselves down the lane.

I was dumb enough to forget my camera yet again. Christi is retro-cool enough to carry a Polaroid instant camera. That left the digital recording of this venture to James, who is always equipped with an iPhone. He sent me these shots:

And you can check out more at his Flickr page: http://flickr.com/photos/68679992@N00

The ground on ice and the sky on fire

I hit up the Ice Park for the third and final time to see the multi-block competition judging. The place was packed and I had to ditch the Kia about a mile from the park and walk the rest of the way on a narrow street that somehow had room for two-way traffic, a row of cars on one sholder and a single-file line of people. Honestly, the asphalt was only 15 feet wide and had snowbanks on both ends. This shouldn't have been possible.

But nor should have been some of the ice sculptures I saw. Some were tall, nuanced pillars with women or decor carved on the side. Most of the multi-block contenders were grandoise and complex. Some depicted scenes from stories (none I could recognize) and took as much ground area as a small stage.

To cap it, the aurora appeared as I was walking to the main stage to see the judging. I had to step into some trees to reduce light pollution to see it, but it was quite active that night (and much stronger when I headed to City Lights Boulevard later that evening).

I didn't stay for the judging because I couldn't hear the presentation over scraping sounds from sleds of kids being dragged around by their parents. I wasn't interested enough to stick around and figure it out.

I left later that night on foot to test the waters at some of the bars downtown. The aurora seemed to consume the sky when I passed through poorly lit areas. Luckily, it happened so often that I had my camera with me one of those times:

I'll have much better shots when I have a camera away from town.

Me and my big feet

Being a wuss and not much of an outdoorsy person to begin with, I've taken a light step into the world of winter recreation. Why snowboard or ski, when you can showshoe?

OK, because they're probably more fun, but you need balance and perserverance to slide down a hill. The good Lord blessed me with neither.

There's 13 hours of daylight and I didn't want to waste 'em in the middle of the city, so for now, I'm a snowshoer. I spent a couple of excursions plodding around UAF's North Campus area getting the feel for 'em:

I'd tested my maneuverability to the point that my shins were bruised from falling and having the front of the shoeslap aganst them. I was ready to move onto bigger, better things. That's when I found out that even showshoeing can kill me.

Well, not so much the walking part, but the driving to the trail part.

I wanted to try a 3-mile trail off Chena Hot Spring Road, about 48 miles out of town. The road winds a bit and is covered with patches of ice this time of year, so I drove slow -- much slower than anyonw with experience on ice would have. Unfortunately for me, those people with experience were tailgating me the entire time. I'd pull over to the curb and let them by, only to be followed again. I'd get ballsy and speed up, only to skid on the ice and nearly have aheart attack. By Mile 20, I said "**** it" and turned around.

No traffic on the way back. Odd.

Where to begin?

2008-03-08T15:38:00.000-08:00

At the beginning, duh, which is my second trip to the Ice Park.

The single-block competition was done, so I decided to get a couple of snapshots of the finished pieces. To get the full effect, the night time is the right time. But I was going to see a play later, so I'd just have to make do with high-noon sunlight.

What I didn't plan on was the gusty winds causing a painful chill at the base of my skull. Making matters worse was the tunnel effect of the paths at the Ice Park. I'd always conceded that a -40 day in Fairbanks is more pleasant than a zero day in Minnesota with strong winds, but now I had empirical data to support it. I didn't stay for longer than 30 minutes.

I'll package the pics from that trip in a later post with the ones I'll take tonight.

But the day wasn't a bust. I met Christi downtown for Thai food and a play later that night. Having never tried curry before, I was lucky to have someone there. Christi would notice when I was staring at my food in a perplexed gaze and let me know what the heck to do with it. Honestly, if it ain't a sandwich, I'm confused. It took me three months to understand salad.

We hopped across the street to the Empress Theatre to see "Camino Real," a Tennesse Williams' play that substitutes a narrative with a head trip. There was a plot, I think, but I instead took interest in the minor aspects of the show. Throughout the play, there's gypsies, whores and the like reacting to the play's events, and I found myself watching them as much as the central action.

I enjoyed the play itself, but what I enjoyed more was forgetting that I was in Fairbanks.

This is a great place, but my existence the past six months has revolved around either discovering Alaska or working for the newspaper. I needed a break. I had been having recurring dreams where I was in Tampa, Gainesville or Bradenton with the Armstrong All-Stars. I haven't been homesick (consciously, anyway), but it is jarring to awake 5,000 miles from where you thought you were.

Someone once described Interior life to me as "hyper-life" because everything you do is complicated by the environment. It's like when Justin and I went on a beer run during Hurricane Francis and got hit by 70 mph wind gusts running back to my dad's SUV: All we did was buy a 24 pack of Bud Light, but we did it in a hurricaine. Same premise here: I didn't just go Christmas shopping, I went Christmas shopping in -40 weather.

But hyper-life wears on you, and it was refreshing to spend a few hours forgetting where I was.

My back was sore from sleeping in an awkward position earlier that day, and plopping in a theater chair for 2-plus hours didn't help the fact, so when it was time to hit the Midnite Mine for a few rounds, I was more than eager.

At the Mine, Christi and I met up with Mary, who played a -- ahem -- practitioner of the oldest profession in the play. A pretty girl who can drop a dirty word like a SCUD, I immediately took a shine to her. She's a design geek, and I try to understand design (seeing as it's part of my job and all) so I limped to keep up in the conversation, barely getting by with a few well-placed eyebrow raises and head nods.

At 1, I headed to the Big I to catch up with Adam, who had turned 24 at midnight. The place was unusually dead, and Adam was beat from a rough night on the job. We had a drink and shot the breeze about the NBA trade deadline before admitting the night was done.

The next day, I attempted to treat him to a birthday lunch, but most of the downtown restaurants wouldn't comply. That's the thing about Fairbanks: Nothing is open on a Sunday. There was a time Rich and I tried to order a pizza one Sunday while watching football. No luck. I had to go to the supermarket. Coming from a town where every other building is a restaurant, being closed on the day everyone has free time is absurd to me.

Speaking of free time, I finally am spending some of mine at a gym. Adam gave me a 10-day pass to the Mary Siah rec center (a community pool with a less-than-modest weight room) which he had adopted from Rich a year ago. It takes some creative engineering to get a full workout in, especially when none of the equipment is made for 6-foot-plus individuals, but it's enough and I'm already waking up with a little more energy after just a week.

Well, this is a long post, so I'll end it ...

here.

Gentlemen, start your chainsaws

2008-02-27T16:46:00.000-08:00

Oddly enough, I'm glad the above-freezing days didn't last too long. It was getting kind of mushy around here, and I was worried we'd lose too much snow for my snowshoeing excursion over the weekend.

No problem there. Not only have temps dropped to a comfortable 20-to-negative-5 range, but we got a fresh few inches of snow a couple of days after the chinook winds left.

But the warm temperatures had me feeling revived, and on Saturday I propped my snowshoes over my shoulder and ambled to Creamer's to give 'em a test run.

The trails were eerily unpopulated for 10 a.m. on a Saturday, which made me feel like I was tresspassing. The borealis forest trail -- a one-mile loop through the forest behind the field -- was well-packed, so snowshoes seemed like overkill, but that's what I was here for, so I strapped 'em on near the open field and took a few oblong-shaped routes before deciding, in a very amateur opinion, that I was doing it somewhat correctly.

I did seem to be sinking into the snow a little more than expected, and later that night at The Marlin I voiced this worry to a local. They're not floatation devices, he told me (I knew this, but didn't want to interrupt). "If you sank this far," he said with his right hand stacked about a foot above his left, "then you would have sank this far in boots." He dropped his left hand another foot or so.

But back to that morning, when my slight success garnered me the gumption to try the trails at Birch Hill. Turns out they're mostly for cross-country skiing, so i had to go crosstown to try a trail on the UAF North Campus area.

I didn't just learn about snowshoeing that day. LAter at an Ice Dogs game, I found out why intermissions in hockey games are 15 minutes long: so everyone has time to get a beer.

Honestly, had I known that alcohol was the key to understanding hockey, I woulda been one hell of a Lightning fan. Just clutching a cold one in my hand for the entirely of the game gave me the desire to root, high-five and pound on the plexiglass.

Later that week, the World Ice Art Championships began near the railyard and I stopped by one day before work to check it out.

There was a small single-wide building (what us Florida kids call "portables") with signs about ticketing and souvenirs, but I briskly walked around it. It didn't look open and, besides, why would I buy a ticket to see some unmade ice carvings?

But I was stopped by a charming old lady on the other end of the building who informed me that I didn't have a ticket and brought me inside the souvenir shoppe. I got some "gotcha!" looks from other ladies in the portable. Really? I thought, I'm a 23-year-old in khakis and a collared shirt trying to walk into an ice-art exhibit, not a 16-year-old punk sneaking into the back door of a movie theater.

It was 10 bucks a day. My jaw dropped and I made a bee-line to the door ... until I heard it was $25 for an unlimited pass. "You should really open with that, y'know," I said as I signed the credit slip.

So I got in and got a few shots of the single-block competition:

Obviously, more from this later. 'Til then, stay warm, people.

Random touristy stuffage

2008-02-22T15:16:00.000-08:00

This is the water tower across the highway from the pipeline viewing spot near Fox. It's used for ice-climbing practice, and some of its more enthusiastic climbers dyed it pink and green in December.

I took type of picture a lot on the original trip to Fairbanks. Just got nostalgic, I guess.

Here I iz, stealin ur oil.

This is about as far north as I got last Saturday, about 20 miles north of Fox on the Elliot Highway (SR2), I contemplated driving further, but my stomach said "no."

burnin' up

2008-02-21T14:43:00.000-08:00

52 degrees.

In Alaska. In February.

Aaaah. Refreshing.

Just 10 days after the mercury in my neighbor's thermometer froze, leaving my best guess at the temperature at a chilly -48, chinook winds blew in from the Pacific, bringing 100 Farenheits worth of degrees with them.

And it feels great, but the weather isn't the only reason why spirits are bright in the Box.

Last Saturday, I finally got back to exploring some of the places I promised I'd have conquered by now: Birch Hill, Murphy Dome and some of the highways and byways around Fox. Now equipped with snowshoes, I can check out more winter terrain and I have a feeling waking up before noon might not be as arduous for a while.

Another reason to look forward to consciousness during the morning is the end of the Yukon Quest. Since the dog teams left Fairbanks, sportswriter Matias and photo editor Sam have been giving chase, hopping to frigid outposts with names like Scroggie Creek and Slaven's Roadhouse. The very spirit of the race requires attention at all hours, meaning that in order to put the most complete story in the paper, it has to be written very late.

Forget pushing deadline, we've been barreling through it, sending the front page off to the presses at least 45 minutes late. In fact, the only time we made deadline was when it got pushed back to 2 a.m. the morning the winner (Lance Mackey, his fourth in a row) crossed the finish line in Whitehorse.

Not that I'm complaining. Having little knowledge about dog mushing, I still found myself eager to read Matias' stories the minute they arrived via e-mail, and when Sam calls to tell me there are fresh pictures to upload I pop out of my chair and take long strides to the photo section. It was fun stuff, and the mushers are real characters. A bit gruff and cocky -- certainly the type of people who'd peg me as city-folk in a heartbeat -- but at least that makes them colorful.

It's not like I'm going to watch a dog race over, say, college basketball, but I find it a bit more approachable than major sports these days. For example, a typical football fan will forfeit a minimum of 17 Sundays a year to watch games. Then, worst-case scenario, the Monday night matchups stink after week three, which means we also can subtract a minimum of three evenings a year. Take 10 minutes per morning reading team news in the local sports section or team Web site: In a 17-week regular season, that's 1,190 minutes or 19 hours, 50 minutes -- about four days free time for a very unoccupied person. Playoff matchups take two days per weekend thrice. Add the Super Bowl and you've lost a minimum of 31 days' free time as a casual fan, which is all spread over half a year. Then there's the draft, following your favorite college players ... you get the idea.

So if most sports are full-time jobs, the Quest is like a two-week internship.

Today, the temps are back down to freezing, which is kind of nice because the roads were getting a bit too slick. I'm taking a day off exploring 'cause a bit of cold is creeping up on me.

Hopefully, this passes soon. I'm looking forward to snowshoeing off the beaten trail at Creamer's tomorrow.

Quest for not fire

2008-02-13T03:56:00.000-08:00

This is usually where I am on a -40 day. Cuddled up in a blanket my grandma made for me, waiting for more coffee to brew.

Here's the Quest's starting gates about an hour before the race. Most of the competitors and crew are prepping/chatting/drinking down the river.

Me with some free apple cider from the visitor's center. I cannot emphasize how ridiculously soothing and invigorating hot drinks are on days like these. No, my lens isn't smudged. That's breath and ice fog.

Yay! I'm finally standing on frozen water. It only took me three months and frighteningly low temperatures to deem the Chena River solid enough to step on.

This is the foot bridge downtown with some reasonably light ice fog behind it. It warmed up by the time the mushers started racing and a lot of the ice fog dissipated.

Doesn't this shot make Fairbanks look like a real bona fide metro-poly-tan city? In the foreground, that's Adam in the hoodie and Christi with the funky gloves.

This goes in the category "shots that make me happy I'm relatively tall." It's of a Frenchman named Moggia who was first out of the gate.

Some of the hustle 'n' bustle at the starting gates.

Downtown from the Cushman Street bridge.

Low-visibility vision quest

2008-02-10T13:56:00.000-08:00

Since the big move, I've witnessed very few "you have to be there" events: the hometown traditions that bring out everyone regardless of their interest in the actual event itself.

Sure, I've watched fireworks on the solstice with half of Fairbanks downtown, but I was only half-there, observing from the News-Miner parking lot with some latecomers who couldn't get a good spot by the river while the echo popped acutely off the office building behind us.

The Yukon Quest start was different. For one, I was actually there, standing on the river as the dog teams hustled by. More importantly, if I wasn't there, I would have a dang hard time explaining why. As far as I know, there was no place else to be in Fairbanks from 11 a.m. to noon. In an arctic town experiencing its longest cold snap in eight years, it was a widespread cure to cabin fever.

Without any inside knowledge on the sport and minimal understanding of the competitiors, there's not much more to notice than "dogs are running with a person in tow." But at least for a while, it didn't matter whether you were into the sport or not. The city finally had some good vibes after a communal low (literally and figuratively).

So Adam, Christi, James (the desker from Key West) and I zipped upour parkas and tromped to the river to see ... well, I didn't know what to expect.

The 26 teams started in three-minute intervals and quicly disappeared into the ice fog (our version of smog).

The race is 1,000 miles long, covering some of the roughest terrain avalable -- we came out to see less than 200 yards of it on well-packed snow. So I don't take anything I saw that day as an indication of what the race is really like.

One thing that's much different below zero at a sporting event: No clapping. That leaves only whooping and cheering as ways to root on the teams, and that requires a a bit of gumption. I let out a couple of loud "Yeah"s, and drew little more than odd glances. Oh well. I kept yelling.

We had to wait about 30 miutes for the first musher to start, so we retreated to the News-Miner (just across the river) to defrost before heading out again to catch the view from the Cushman Street bridge. We watched Nos. 16-20 depart before Adam said, "Yeah, more dogs," and we all agreed that we would rather be inside.

After grabbing some Mexican food, we split ways. I headed to McCafferty's and chatted with some fellow spectators from the Yukon as a folk band played twangy tunes.

The temperature had risen to a brisk -10, so I decided to take the opportunity to walk home. It's amazing how simple things like human interaction and mobility can take the weight off a winter day in Fairbanks.

Later that night, I learned to like hockey.

I had been to UAF games and wasn't that impressed. The Nanooks aren't very good, I'm told, so I expected that coming in. Still, the two times I showed up at the Carlson Center, I felt there was something lacking.

When I went to see the Ice Dogs, Fairbanks' semi-pro team, I found out what that was: aggression.

The Ice Dogs are equally as tepid in terms of skill, as it seems to the untrained eye, but at least they know how to hit somebody and get off some shots, no matter how errant. When Topeka took a daunting lead at the end of the second period, the Ice Dogs took offense and started a four-player scuffle in the corner. "Yup, there they go." the man to my right said.

Also, the Big Dipper Ice Arena may be a cheaper venue than the Carlson Center, but you can have a beer there and you don't have to sit down to watch the game, perfect accomodations for a 6'2" alcoholic.

Will I still go to Nanooks' games? Of course. College hockey is fun to watch in a civilized fashion, but I'll secretly be waiting for some hard hits and dropped gloves. I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

Whoops! My green is showing.

2008-02-09T19:04:00.000-08:00

As I said in the last post, my E-brake tends to jam in the cold. That of course begs the question: Then why don't you just stop using your E-brake?

To be concise: It's a reflex. I'm an idiot.

When I got the Kia! (yes, the exclamation point needs to be there, at times) The most out-of-place component of it was the emergency brake lever. Sitting at the driver's right hip, it could be engaged with a quick jerk upward, which gave it a rally car/chase sequence type of cool that had no place in an $11K sedan.

The thing rattles like an Apollo capsule re-entry when it surpasses 85 mph and has a horn that could make a Miata blush. If I'm ever in a chase with it, I'll use it to swerve in front of a better car so I can steal it. There's no reason I'll need that brake to swing around a street corner at a 270-degree angle.

But the absurdity of it was what caused me to use the brake in the first place.

I was 18 and deperate to do everything differently from anyone else: music, writing, walking, dressing, you name it. Now, I could park unlike anyone in my graduating class, so I did. By the time that phase of staunch individualism passed, it was second nature. In fact, when I stopped trying to do it earlier this winter, my heart would skip a beat every time the car would roll a quarter-inch when I let off the brake after shifting into park.

So I honestly didn't notice three days when I subconsciously pulled the lever at 2 a.m. outside of Safeway. I don't remember doing it. I don't rememeber hearing the clicking. All I remember is putting down my bran flakes and saying, "Aw (choice expression)" upon return.

After a few attempts of reversing quickly and pulling the lever (it's worked before). I realized it was no use at -47 degrees and scooted slowly home. The next day, I was keeping a close eye on the temperatures. When it hit -23, I gave it another shot; this time, it suceeded.

But oh, oh, no. It couldn't just end there. I am, after all, Josh.

Last night, as I turned on my car to warm it up, the E-brake light flipped on. What? How? I'd been adamant not to touch that thing. Did I slip up again? Is it a malfunction?

I was consumed with the idea of having to scoot in short, 15 mph bursts again, waiting for another jump in temperature.

Luckily, the car seemd fine, there was a faint scratching noise, but that was probably just the studded tires on gravel. When I got home, I reached to the passenger seat for my exension cord ... my ext .... aw, (choicer expression).

Yup, It was dragging below my car, attached to the front plug, scratching on the ground. I too it inside and gave it a quick inspection: no apparent chafing to the wire, male socket is still in the same shape and isn't warm. Diagnosis: There was only one way to see if it still worked.

I was expecting a failure to result in me trying to start a frozen engine in the morning, but my results were immediate. The faint pop and spark that flew from the cord when I plugged it in was proof enough. Looks like I'll need a new extension cord and a few minutes to ask the landlord to flip the circuit breaker. Sorry Kia, you're gonna be frozen.

But first things first, I had to see the start of the Yukon Quest. Pics and a post of that tomorrow.

Yup, still cold.

2008-02-07T14:37:00.000-08:00

I think this story says all I need to say about the temperatures around here.

With some luck, the weather forecast may be correct (which is as likely as "Shaft" airing on Lifetime) and we'll only be a few ticks below zero.

The Kia could definitely use it. The E-brake has a tendency to lock up from time to time in the cold, and when it's -35 or colder there's no unjamming it. I need to get new spark plugs, but there's no way to work on the dang thing with thick gloves on. I got the new plugs just sitting on my dresser, teasing me. But Josh + car work = an awkward situation, and adding thick gloves can only spell disaster. So disastrous that you can spell something with a math equation.

And thinner gloves for a short period of time is not an option. I put in a new headlight at -10 degrees and couldn't open the casing or work the wiring with my winter gloves on, so I switched to some thin gardening gloves. I had to go inside 10 minutes later and soak my fingers in warm water to regain feeling.

Come to think of it, I've been doing OK with the dryness, the cold and the isolation, but gloves have been my nemesis. I've never owned a pair before moving to Alaska and only worn them twice back then. I completely underestimated how much they limit your digital mobility.

When I'm wearing gloves, my hands are as secure as a 5-year-old's. I drop keys, mail, hot beats, coffee mugs and pretty much anything that I can't tie to my wrist. Half the time, I don't even notice it. There have been at least two instances in which I've ran into the parking lot at -15 degrees to retrieve a piece of mail in the snow. Simple tasks like reaching into pockets or unlocking a door (even using a keychain button) increase in difficulty at least tenfold.

But so much to the wind, eh?

Ahgh!

The fuel truck just pulled up and is refilling the building's gas. I've had my thermostat set on 88 to keep it about 65 in here. I thought it was just my heating system struggling against three straight -40 days, but it seems the gas was low, so I gotta turn that down before it becomes an oven in here. ...

Well, crisis averted. Not that 88 degrees would be horrible, but I fear that if my apartment is more than 120 degrees warmer than the outside air, diffusion might cause the Box to explode like a space station with a crack in the window.

And that's all for the moment. Drink one for me.

The price of beauty

2008-02-04T15:36:00.000-08:00

It's a sunny, clear day, the kind that makes you want to do more with your time on this Earth. But for February in Alaska, it's a tease.

The nicer the day, the less clouds to insulate the valley. Thus, beautiful equals cold enough that putting your head in the frezer is warm by comparison. That is no exaggeration.

But even at -30, a little sunshine is good for the mind. It reminds me that spring isn't far off and 6 p.m. might once again be considered an afternoon hour instead of nighttime.

Now, when I say "spring," I mean what I used to think was winter. I fully expect there to be snow on the ground until May, but soon there will be enough warmth and daylight for a newbie like me to enjoy Alaska a little more. It's been six months since I left Florida, and I'm hardly experienced with the Fairbanks area or winter activities.

Sportswriter Matias was good enough to hook me up with the list serv of the Nordic cross-counry ski club, but I won't have a sturdy enough schedule to take lessons until our newest copy editor comes in late March.

Until I get off my lazy bum and do something about it, I guess I'll just have to be content with scaring my family with pictures like this:

"Peace, love, dope!" -- Terrence Mann

Links 2,3,4 update

2008-02-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

Added Julie's mushing blog and Rich's trail journal to the links. Yes, Rich is called Skittles among his trail-folk. No, it is not innuendo.

Classic flicks, sweaty fighters and an allergy to bullets

2008-01-30T16:44:00.001-08:00

About 2 a.m. at the News-Miner, I was fiddling with the new Web site (which is up and running today: http://www.newsminer.com/), when the long-silent walkie talkie on the desk crackled to life, startling me.

Voice 1: Hey, you know we're all coming over to your cabin for the game, right?

Voice 2: I don't have any friends over. Don't have 'em; don't need any friends.

Voice 1: Well then, all your enemies are coming over Sunday.

Voice 2: If that's the case, I hope you're not allergic to bullets.

Then, after a minute of crackling ...

Voice 2: Don't worry, I'll make sure you fall inside.

Then he chuckled.

Welcome to Interior Alaska.

As I said in my last post, there were some possibilities this past weekend, with my first patch of days off in a few weeks.

I didn't make it out to the hot springs or Birch Hill, but there was still fun to be had. I saw two flicks at Lacey Street Theatre, which just reopened as a moviehouse after spending the last few years as strictly an ice sculpture museum. They show classics for four bucks a ticket.

The theater is surrounded by high balconies where ice carvings are displayed in the summer (there's no point in keeping them inside at this time of year). Huge exhaust fans take up most of the ceiling and seriously disrupt the acoustic quality of the place, but it's worth the experience nonetheless.

The first movie I caught was "Breakfast at Tiffany's" with my friend Christi, a features writer at the News-Miner. We followed that with a mixed martial arts card at the Gold Rush Saloon.

Yeah, odd night. It was like flipping from Nicktoons to the Playboy Channel.

I enjoyed the MMA fights. The combatants weren't very polished, so the fights couldn't be classified as suspenseful and intriguing, but tense and instantly gratifying. Only one lasted the full three rounds, but all had at least 30 seconds of blow-for-blow brawling.

The combination of amateur fighting, booze and scantily clad ring girls literally made the air thick with male pheremones. "Did that place smell weird to you?" Christi asked me as we grabbed a bite afterward. "I think it was all the testosterone. I saw another girl look like she smelled something odd, too." I told her it was just the musk of any male locker room, but I honestly didn't even notice.

The next day, Adam and I tried to get our pictures taken by a -40 degree Farenheit sign in board shorts, but winter didn't comply. This was the best we could do:

With a pre-warmed car and a fully dressed cameraman (Rich), it was amazingly tolerable. I was apprehensive that day, but when -40 comes aound I'll be downright excited. I hear it takes five minutes for frostbite to set in at that temperature, which is plenty of time.

We followed that with "E.T." at Lacey Street, which was really the beginning of the Rich Larson Farewell Tour. He left Wednesday morning to see family in Minnesota before starting the Appalachian Trail in mid-February. He's following that with the Continental Divide Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and a trail in New Zealand that had a few play-it-by-ear pathes in it.

So what did we do to send him out with a bang? Beer and Euchre for three nights with a sprinkling of NBA games and a pich of "Adult Swim." It needn't be more complicated than that.

I'll link to Rich's trail blog when I know the address.

Good luck, dude.

Zoom in really close, you'll notce no tan lines

2008-01-26T15:17:00.000-08:00

Geez, everyone really does grow a beard when they come to Alaska.

This is the first 5 inches of the 10 we got that night.

This is not the best shot I have of these riverside decorations, but I thought it showed how hard it is to be an amateur photographer on snowy -20 degree nights. Combine the snow throwing off the autofocus, my breath clouding the view and the fact that I wasn't sticking around for a second shot, this is the result. And no, I'm not even breathing hard.

The night-shot feature didn't help me get a good shot of downtown from a footbridge just east of Cushman Street.

From the first day it went below zero, there have been tracks across the Chena River. I have yet to trust it.

Wherever you go, you always find something that reminds you of home. Go Bucs.

Here's a statue for WWII vets near the Chena River. I like the fact that the statues here don't look pristine, but freezing and uncomfortable like the rest of us.

2008-01-26T01:29:00.000-08:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never post. I'd say "so sue me," but that might be possible these days

Life's been good lately. Temps jumped above freezing the other day and the icicles from the porch upstairs dripped onto my car. The water slid down the windshield in a tapered strip and froze a few minutes later. This gave it a "devil lock" like Jerry Only.

Because running the desk for the night means putting stories from the news wire (ex. The Associated Press), I try to at least take a look at every national and international story available. With the American economy in turmoil, two wars, global warming and a Hollywood writers strike, there's a lot to digest. And that's not even counting what I call "statistical probabilities."

With 6.5 billion (and counting) people on Earth, there's no such thing anymore as too crazy, too smart, too dumb, too reclusive, too obsessive, ect. Statistically, there's a one-in 6.5billion chance for almost anything. If it is physically possible to live a life around a specific principle, someones done it. People will marry a parking space, they'll live with only Red Hots for sustinance and they'll follow paparazzi fodder like Lindsey Lohan into Hell and back.

And that's outside of Alaska. There's a little tiff up here about oil, seing as we're running out and all. Oh, and the government is deciding whom to help with building a natural gas pipeline. Y'know, little things like that. It's not like oil is at triple digits per barrel. Oh wait ...

In a given day, I see a lot of evil and good, all coded into 26 symbols and sent to my computer screen. War, famine, hope, triumph; it's all happening somewhere. It's enough to make me feel incredibly small when I step into the Box, kick my shoes onto the snow-soaking towel in the corner and unfold my futon to zap my brain with television waves until I'm stress-free enough to rest.

My newest post-work mind-number is "Heroes" which I'm watching for a few hours a night on Netflix. The premise isn't exactly original (it's "X-Men" with a destiny theme) and the story is stretched so thin that it leaves little room for suspense. Still, it has a smart bag of tricks and some of the characters are engaging enough to keep me coming back.

My brother told me my Alaska journey was his "adventure story." I wonder if the chapter with me sitting Indian-style on my futon at 1 a.m. nacking on Goldfish crackers and watching a two-year-old TV show on a laptop set on a standalone TV tray will make the final edit.

But hey! I got a three-day weekend coming up, which is longer than all my time off in the last three weeks combined. Maybe I'll hit a hill with a sled or check out the hot springs. There are possibilites, and this adventure story just got out of the prologue. Maybe not. We'll see.

Naturally ... Jan 13-15

2008-01-19T00:49:00.000-08:00

Of course I couldn't keep up a simple regimen such as 100 words/day. At least you know my laziness hasn't changed since I left.

Well, where do I begin? The 10 inches of snow that fell over Wednesday night? Sure, 10 inches isn't a blizzard, but it was still the largest 24-hour total in a long time for Fairbanks.

Every skier, snowshoer, snowmachiner and dog musher became instantly giddy. That amounts to about half the population here. Add to that a rough 25 percent of people who have to deal with them on a regular basis, and you have an automatically pleasant day for three-quarters of the city.

And even those of us who don't partake in winter sports still got he urge to play. Leaving my apartment to go to the grocery store, I saw some kids having a snowfight and (why not?) I joined them.

Notice how I didn't write "snowball fight. Turns out the snow is too dry to pack into tight missiles. Instead, we knocked the tops and sides of plowed snow piles at each other or used both hands to scattershot the snow in each other's direction. I gotta tell you, it really took the stress off.

What stress you ask?

...

So maybe I should have begun with the nonstop work marathon Rich and I have endured since our fellow copy editor Gary left for vacation and Julie was promoted to overhaul and run the Web site. With three front pages designed between us, Rich and I have had some bumps running the section, but ultimately, I thnk we survived quite well.

A'course, we had some help. Freelance/musher/hippie Jillian (writer of the Wannabe Musher blog on the right) filled in when we needed her, which turned out to be many nights. Julie came back for a victory lap one Saturday night, which allowed me to utilize my exciting social skills to take a nap.

And to top off the confusion, a new member of the desk, James, arrived Monday. He's from Key West, which trumps my distance record. But he flew, so I still have the driving record. Also, he's lived in Indianapolis, so even though he got here on a -40 day, he hasn't had half the culture shock I received.

It's great to have someone else on the desk, but since Rich and I are barely getting by, it's kind of like the blind leading the blind. For now.

Well, that's all I can muster. I'm at my desk after a 11-hour shift, so I'll try to catch you up some more tomorrow. Also, pics then, too.

Jan. 13

2008-01-14T13:03:00.000-08:00

I last left with a camera and a mission to photograph downtown Fairbanks. It was a snow night, which threw off my camera's focus, so I did what I could. It was -20 out and I managed to stay outside in it for about 40 minutes. I could have filled a pint

Speaking of pints, I went down to The Pub to read the Sun Star, UAF's student newspaper, over a Guinness and the bar's typical quirky music selection. It was hair band night -- quite a find.

A little past midnight, I met the night crew at The Big I for cards. We played Euchre, a game I had no experience with and my companions -- Adam, Rich and another sportswriter, Matias -- knew quite well. Still, I managed to pull a few good hands, catch some lucky breaks and the guys forgave many gaffes in etiquette. I never realized how rarely kids in Florida play card games because we're never stuck inside. And here I was with three people from Ohio, Minnesota and Michigan, way out of my league.

To make my ignorance of the game more bearable, I had a few too many black and ambers --Guinness and Alaskan Ambers, a combination I highly recommend. I stumbled to Bob's and passed out on the same couch I stayed on when I arrived in town.

I woke just in time to see Antonio Cromarte's interception touchdown get called back against the Colts. Another football day, except we were out of pizza, beer and chips. Since it was -18 degrees, I wasn't up to running errands, so Rich and I spent both football games with grumbling stomachs.

I went home and engorged myself with Potato soup, microwave lasagna and Goldfish crackers (I have one of those mondo-sized cartons that could feed a malnourished pack mule.) Thus stuffed, bounded off to work.

The length of our Saturday night became apparent as Rich and I put together a tiny edition and still managed to barely beat deadline.

Fun with -40, Part I

2008-01-14T12:56:00.000-08:00

Jan. 12

2008-01-12T22:01:00.000-08:00

Football day. I only have a few of these left. Then again, there’s college basketball, which was reason enough for me to get up at 8 and listen to the Gators game on Yahoo! radio. A plus to being unable to watch the game is that it forced you to multitask. The Box could be a lot cleaner in the coming weeks because the Gators aren’t good enough to be broadcast on national TV.

Pleased with Florida’s win, I took a victory nap and woke in just enough time to start my car and get ready to go to Bob’s. The Kia whined a bit in the -30 weather, but it came around on the second turn of the ignition switch. You can do all you want to prepare, some things just don’t want to work below -20.

At Bob’s, it was the usual fare: pizza, beer and dirty jokes. And Sun Chips. Never anything else, always Sun Chips. It doesn’t matter who’s buying that day, we always get the healthful whole-grain stuff instead of real chips. Since we’re all pretty health-conscious, I guess it makes us feel better when we wash them down with a few beers and a greasy slice.

Adam, the Ohioan sportswriter, was delighted with Green Bay’s win. Bob was happy because the Packers beat the spread the game went over the over/under line. Rich and I, well, we had pizza and beer and were therefore happy.

Adam brought Big League Chew, the tobacco-inspired gum that enthralled my generation (go ahead, mention it to anyone my age and see their eyes light up). He, Rich and I pinched massive chunks of the stringy bubble gum from the baggie and chewed until the slimy, sweet paste became a malleable wad good enough to make a bubble bigger than our heads.

Alas, work time came for the rest of the crew, so I cruised home for the Pats-Jags game. The sky wasn’t yet pitch black when I left at about 3:45, which made me feel good.

I had planned on seeing "Into the Wild" tonight, but that fell through and instead I’m going downtown to take a couple shots of the city at night. I’ll have them up by Monday.

Jan. 11 already?

2008-01-12T02:04:00.000-08:00

One of Elmore Leonard’s tips to writing is to never make a prologue, so I’ve already said too much. Never mind the bollocks. From here on out, it’s a couple of hundred words per day on the day and no more fuss about style and proper narrative.

I’ve finally found something to help me get out of bed before noon: my iHome on the kitchen counter set to something listenable so I won’t turn it off. 9:30 for the second day in a row. When the sun isn’t out, that’s an accomplishment.

The temps dropped again today. We’re headed for another cold snap. It was -15 this morning, warmed to -1 when I went to work at 1 p.m.

Managing editor Kelly is still vacationing, so the assistant ME Rod was working with me on the Sunday Opinion pages. Unlike Kelly, Rod had everything ready for me to put on the pages when I arrived. That’s not a knock on Kelly who takes more time to hand-pick the content.

But that saved me two hours and I got a jump-start on Saturday’s paper and left at 6 instead of 9. I never really asked Rich, who was heading the desk today, if the three-hour lapse was cool. I just said, "I’m out." It was my day off, after all.

I had plans to hit The Pub at UAF, but my week caught up with me and I crashed watching "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou."

I woke a few hours later, went online to check my e-mail, and saw the temperature: -25.

There’s a -40 day a-brewin’ sometime soon. Be prepared for pictures and a video.

Pics, ect.

2008-01-08T15:14:00.000-08:00

It could be below negative 40, but it certainly ain't above it. The mercury, by the way, is frozen. This is at Rod and Julie's place in the hills east of town a couple of weeks before Christmas.

2:59 p.m. on Dec. 22 (the shortest day of the year by about 15 seconds) looking east-northeast from UAF. The sun had set behind me 20 minutes earlier.

An ice sculpture at the south end of UAF after sunset on Dec. 22. It's a bear, er, a nanook (the mascot).

One of Santa's reindeer in North Pole. This is the last shot before my alkaline batteries froze.

A dragon sculpture at Santaland RV Park in North Pole. They had a Christmas in Ice celebration, which is the only reason outside of gift shopping to go to North Pole.

Santa's sleigh in ice. Yup, you can sit in it. Yup, your butt freezes when you sit in it at minus 37 degrees.

My struggles with the Anchorage airport's WiFi would have been legendary, had I not given up about three seconds after taking this shot.

This is about as much Christmas decorating as I was willing to do this year. The boxes on the left are my gifts, which dwarf my tree. Had I stacked all my gifts under it, it would have touched the ceiling and then some.

This was a pose to show my parents how much I loved the new beanie they got me. It just also happens to be the best recent shot of me available.

Winter Wondering

2008-01-08T15:03:00.000-08:00

Yeah, it’s been a while. There’s many reasons you haven’t heard from me lately. Some will be fleshed out here. But enough excuses. I’m writing this post in search of a proper description of the cold, dark and long Fairbanks winter.

Of course, we could use "cold, dark and long." Those are appropriate words, but I think we can break them down to get to the root of what I’ve experienced. They have cold, dark and long winters in New England. This is the Arctic. There’s a bit of a difference.

A quick thesaurus scan lead me to believe that "benumbed" is the most accurate word to describe 40 degrees below zero.

"Biting" is close, but it implies that you have feeling for more than a few minutes. That is only true in Fairbanks for the stinging feeling you get in your lungs after a deep breath. Nope, once the thermostat goes so low as to freeze mercury (pictured in the above post), your fingers and toes become little more than movable icicles with less than three layers of gloves or footwear.

"Frigid" is close, too, because it gives you the impression of a lack of activity. This is a merciful aspect of the Fairbanks winter.

There is little wind chill or what airline pilots refer to as "weather" here. Fairbanks is protected by the Chugach Mountains on the southern coast of Alaska and the Northern range, so when wind and storms do make it here, they drop down from the mountaintops and bring warmth with them. Warmth is the relative luxury of above-zero temperatures.

My first day below negative 20 came with little warning. Okay, the weather report predicted it, but I stopped believing weather predictions up here.

Accuweather, the service that the News-Miner uses for forecasts, runs a graphic that just says "Cold" whenever the weather is below negative 10. That’s about 70 percent of the winter, so the copy desk has to continually call them and ask them to change the five-day forecast that just says, "Cold Cold Cold Cold Cold." Duh Duh Duh Duh Duh.

Sunny days are predicted cloudy. Expected snowy days are dry as a bone. I don't think it's their fault. No one seems to know what tomorrow will bring.

Nevertheless, I didn’t see it coming. It was my off day, so I went down to North Pole to take pictures of the Christmas in Ice sculptures (pictured above). I didn’t notice until I had been in my car for 10 minutes with the heat blasting and it was still too cold to take off my gloves or bomber hat.

I had 40-below-tested boots at home, and here I was driving in sneakers.

Halfway to North Pole, the highway passes just south of a retention pond which wafts over the road. The chemical-filled water was a frozen mass of air that crystalized immediately onto my windshield.

A gray blotch grew from a spot near my rear view mirror to engulf the top 18 inches of my windshield. I had to slow from 55 to 30, divert all my hot air to defrost (now dreadfully regretting leaving my boots at home) and slink my head down until my chin nearly touched the steering wheel.

The alkaline in my batteries froze while taking pictures of reindeer at the Santa Claus House. I had to buy lithium ones to get shots of the ice sculptures.

The shots didn’t come out great because I’m an idiot who didn’t realize that since the ground is white, much of the details in the ice wouldn’t show well until the night.

Yup, there’s 20 hours a day when these things look awesome and I brought my camera during the four that didn’t.

Which brings us to the next aspect of Fairbanks winters: the darkness.

The solstice was Dec. 22, and every day leading up to that was gradually shorter. The funny thing was, until about mid-November, I hardly noticed. Because I wake so late and go to work at 4 p.m., there was usally daylight from the time I got up until work.

But still, it got to me. My eating habits were thrown off. I sometimes ate dinner at 5 p.m. after only being up since 10 a.m. My sleeping habits were thrown off. Some nights I would toss and turn in bed from 9 p.m. to noon; others I would restlessly scour the Internet or watch Cartoon Network, unproductively trying to calm my nerves and get some rest. I couldn’t focus enough to do any task for more than 10 minutes, thus my main excuse for the lag on this blog.

I was very mildly suffering from seasonal affective disorder. Some of the more extreme symptoms of this -- which I did not experience -- are depression, weight gain (aside from the standard holiday fare) and moodiness. Though apparently I did suffer from both temporary insomnia and poor sleeping habits.

But on the whole, I believe my first bout with the dark winters went well.
As far as length of the winter, well, that has yet to be tested. Nothing’s expected to melt until May and I hear the best months are ahead of me.

Snow has fallen continually over the weekend, and I now see this town’s true picturesque charm. All the ugly buildings are painted with a fresh coat of 1 2/3 inches of snow. The sun is rising higher every day, and I'm beginning to see it above the building to my south around noon.

Good things to come.

A France: Getting there

2007-12-05T17:15:00.000-08:00

(Ed. note: Part two of my French trip leaves a little to be desired, most notably France itself. But don't worry, It will all make sense in the end. Some of the mundane details are just things that need to be explained at this point of the story. Plus, I couldn't go any further without then describing Paris, which will make for a monster post in itself.)

It’s not that I’m afraid of flying; it’s just that I’m inexperienced.

After years of seeing me zone out on long car trips by staring out the window, my mom had made sure all my seats were near the window. So when my first flight accelerated on the runway, my head was firmly locked in a crooked tilt toward the window as my shoulders bobbed and wove like a boxer glancing blows so I could see everything: the wing, the ground, the sky above, the clouds the clearing.

But of course, to everyone who doesn’t know I’m in a half-conscious state of observation, I looked like a 5-year-old who is three seconds from asking, "Mommy, why are we leaving the ground? Are we gonna fall?"

The flight was running an hour late, but that was actually a convenience. It cut my layover in Miami from three hours to two, and I wasn’t on this trip to enjoy the exquisite pleasures of Miami International. The rest of the plane, however, let out a collective groan. Apparently, I was the only one connecting to Paris. I had spent half of the 45-minute flight trying to peg who was making the same journey as me, and that groan dashed all mystery. Too bad, that girl three rows up was kind of hot, too.

Once in Miami, it took me most of the two-hour layover to determine where I was boarding next (on the other side of the airport) and how to get there (to get out of terminal A, you have to traverse a narrow corridor that is line with what I imagined were the security booths where they did cavity searches and interrogated "questionable" travelers). Finally comfortable with where I was headed, I power-walked around the horseshoe-shaped terminal, passing signs that said:
Terminal B – 20 Minutes
Terminal D – 51 minutes

Luckily, I had plenty of entertainment by lugging my small blue carry-on. It was a one-strap backpack that completely perplexed me as to how to wear it. On the front? On the back? Over one shoulder or across my chest? Making matters no clearer were the books I had jammed into it. There was no way to carry it without jabbing myself with a Frommer’s guide or AAA EuroBook.

I made it to my terminal about 10 minutes before boarding and I was starving. At 5:30 p.m. in Miami, there is no such thing as a short line anywhere, much less the airport. I saw a gift shop across the terminal and overpaid for a Spanish baguette and a bottled water. It took a little prying to get the right items, as most of my requests were followed by "Que?" Ugh, Miami.

After two hours of being surrounded of Spanglish, I found a clear spot on the wall near my gate, slouched and cracked open "Beyond the Game" by Gary Smith. But something caught my ear. A mother was playing with her children, keeping them amused and happy with simple stories, fibs, jokes that aren’t especially clever but good enough to keep the kids from being cranky – the way parents can do when no toys are in sight. And she was doing it in French.

Suddenly, for no other reason than I could understand less than half of what she was saying to a 4-year-old, the stress and worry of my personal situation faded and the frustration from the half-English of MIA was soothed away from the half-English I was accustomed to. I hadn’t boarded yet, but I was already gone.

The plane was delightfully lacking passengers. Nearly everyone dispersed to a point where they had two or three seats to his or her disposal. Good, I thought, maybe I’ll actually catch a few winks. The extra space didn’t help.

Beers on the flight were pricey as expected ($5 or 5 euro), but I ordered a Budweiser to calm my nerves and help me sleep. The alcohol didn’t help.

I turned on my Walkman (the cassette version, as disposable as I could make my music source) and listening to a circa 2000 mixtape did the trick of tiring me out, but it was too uncomfortable to rest my head with the headphones on.

So I spent the early-morning hours watching "Grease" with the French-dubbed version crackling into the English channel from time to time, and I enjoyed a lovely "second sunrise" watching the morning come over the cloud line long after it had passed the true horizon at sea level.

Football daze

2007-12-01T15:52:00.000-08:00

Though I have my "weekend" described two posts ago, my weekend proper is actually just as eventful. After all, it’s football time and when the games come on at 8 a.m., it makes watching the games a new experience.

Fridays, I leave work at 9 in the evening and most of the bars or music venues don’t close until 3:30 a.m. I’ll go check out a show at The Marlin, The Pub or some similar place. There’s cool grass-roots music around here, especially near the college where native Fairbanksans who’ve grown up playing the banjo or plucking the guitar and then melding that skill with punk/jazz/hip-hop. I usually stay until closing time and end up flopping on my futon without unfolding it to catch a few winks.

Just a few. After all, college football starts at 7 a.m. Luckily, it’s mostly Big Ten games, so I sleep in until 9 at the latest. I spend most of the day inside in my undies following whatever games I get up here, listening to the Gators on Yahoo Radio if need be, and getting remedial stuff like laundry and cleaning done. (That’s one big advantage of living in the Box; you can clean the kitchen and still be within 10 feet of the TV.) It’s a relaxed day, but I’m going on 4-5 hours of sleep and pumping coffee down like a stockbroker.

Work at 4:30 in the afternoon. Sunday is, of course, the biggest paper of the week. We lighten our workload by doing the opinion section in advance – why I work early on Friday – but it’s still a lot to do. Basically, we earn our paychecks and then some on Saturday nights. So afterward, we deserve a round or two at The Big I. It’s generally packed with military, local floozies and the usual crowd. There’s a table in the front by the window, they’ve dubbed "the News-Miner table," but it’s taken half the time.

One week, I was feeling frivolous and bought the first round for the crew (sports editor Bob, sportswriters Adam and Matias, copy editor Rich and myself). The next week, Matias covered the tab and suddenly we had a standard rotation.

Because we’re brushing off a tough day, we usually leave at closing time, getting the same overly aggressive "get the hell out" treatment from the barmaid as everyone else – even though we’ve had two drinks apiece, tops, and are usually quietly discussing literature or sports.

At 8 the next morning, I somehow pull myself off the still-folded futon to give Rich a wake-up call. Depending on how peppy we’re feeling, he, Adam and I will either meet at Bob’s (where Rich lives) or the Gold Rush Saloon to watch NFL games. The Gold Rush is a hit-or-miss venture. It boasts a bevy of TVs showing every possible NFL game and relatively cheap drinks but ... the servers are unattractive hussies at best and there’s nothing that resembles actual food in sight. Oh sure, they’ve got a breakfast buffet, but most of that stuff is still crawling.

At Bob’s, we’re usually more relaxed, but Adam gets to see his Bengals and I my Buccaneers at the Gold Rush. As any football fan can tell you, squinting through a smoky haze at wall of TV screens while barely maintaining consciousness by slurping down expensive cheap coffee served by a waitress who’s pissed at you because you’re not ordering a beer every five minutes – and who could use a few more sit-ups and a few less cigarettes – is worth being able to watch your team out of market. Plus, they charge you $8 at the door and give you two chips worth a beer, including 16-ounce Coors’ Lights, which is a pretty good deal on drinks around here.

The NFL games end at 3-ish, giving me the weekly conundrum: Do I take a quick nap or slug it out and go to work on (at most) eight hours of sleep in the past two nights. I usually grab a Rockstar on the way home and opt for the latter. Tired copy editing is easier than drowsy copy editing.

Sunday night is, thankfully, the second-slowest night of the week. This is due to three things: most news doesn’t happen over the weekend (except sports), Monday is an unappealing day for advertisers and Gary is usually running the copy desk while coping with an extreme hangover (he’s the lucky one with Friday and Saturday off).

Once the papers off to the presses, I hit the treadmill in the office gym and head home to catch up on my sleep. I need the rest, after all, because my weekend is just about to begin.

2007-11-29T02:47:00.000-08:00

I’m Mr. Rock & Roll, too, ya know....

A small glass quarter-filled with Wild Turkey to my right, a Diet Coke to my left and a keyboard center mass, I dedicate the remainder of this night to fleshing out my thoughts on Fairbanks. It’s been nearly three months since my arrival, and I’d like to get these opinions on the record before the dead of winter changes my perspective (followed by the midnight sun of summer changing it once more).

The sun rose at 10:01 this morning. It was the first time I’ve seen it come up in a while, since my job keeps me up until 3 a.m. I actually get out around 12:30, but attempting to sleep directly afterward makes the stress from work carry over. I’ve actually spent a delusional half-conscious night worrying about something that I’d screwed up in a dream.
Luckily, I am blessed to have a time zone in which live programs (Good Morning America, the Today Show, et. al.) come on at 2 or 3 a.m., while late-nite shows (Adult Swim, Craig Ferguson) run at the same time as they would out east. So pulling an all-nighter isn’t exactly a painful experience.

Fairbanks is a city in Alaska. It would be a town in any other state, except maybe the northern Rocky Mountain region. Because of this, it recently got its first big-box stores (Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, etc.) And most of the longtime residents resent them.
One letter to the editor suggested calling this part of town "Fanchorage," since anything that’s not a local mom ’n’ pop op is automatically labeled as a product of Anchorage. "When I go into a store with hundreds of people and I can’t recognize one of them, then it can’t be Fairbanks," she wrote.
Plenty would disagree. Copy desk chief Julie and I were discussing this, and she said it’s long overdue that a megamart has come to Fairbanks. When she had a child four years ago, she had to wait in line outside of Sears to buy a crib like it was "The Empire Strikes Back" on opening day because that’s the only way to avoid the high prices of the handmade local shops.

But the whole Fanchorage thing brings me to the strongest impression of Fairbanks: There’s a rabid natural rivalry with Anchorage. Since Anchorage is the biggest city in the state and Fairbanks is definitely a rural epicenter, there’s definitely a feeling of "we don’t need them dang big-city folk ’round here." I once heard a dealership promote that their trucks can stand the conditions "here in real Alaska."
And of course, the college sports rivalry draws from this. Both colleges refer to themselves as the "University of Alaska" though Fairbanks had the first UA campus. Plus, Anchorage is usually the most recognizable team UAF has a decent shot of toppling in sports.

Fairbanks is a town with a heavy tourist season when the temperatures are mild, so cheesy restaurants and gift shops are scattered across the town. Funny, could have sworn I’ve seen a place like this before.

Every week, I try to set goals to explore and discover, but I always find myself lethargic, suffering from an abundance of stimuli and a lack of roads out of town. I drove north from the east side of town on Tuesday to Fox, a suburb of the ‘Banks (no one calls it that, by the way). It was what I expected: quaint town, a couple of homes where you can tell they take Dumpster diving to an extreme level and a nice restaurant... glad I visited, at least.
The next day, I took a road which I thought was heading west. I really had no idea where I was headed. This is a bad decision to make by the way. Had the Kia stalled or slid on a slick hillside, not knowing where you are is a major setback.
But none of that happened and I drove west, or so I thought. I came to a three-way stop and turned the direction which I thought was north. Five minutes later I was in Fox. Luckily, I got to see the oil pipeline on the way and stop at this scenic overlook of Fairbanks.

I wanted to play a game of "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" with a buddy. We then realized we had neither six degrees nor bacon. I wanted to call Kevin Truax just to compensate, but it was about 3 a.m. eastern time.

If you cut Alaska in half, Texas would be the third biggest state behind both pieces of Alaska. There is only one area code for the whole state. Can’t make this up.

Oh, and my Kia is now a "ghetto Prius."

'Nother post tomorrow, already written.

Power to the peas.

My "Weekends"

2007-11-14T17:17:00.000-08:00

Tuesday nights always send me into Wednesday recovery mode. It’s a mile or so to The Marlin, a bar that I frequent in the middle of my "weekend" of those two days, and I always take it upon myself to walk it.

This trip has become sort of a ritual for me, and as the night temperatures fall to single and negative digits, it is a passage that I must endure to allow myself to enjoy the beer or five I have at the bar. The path is becoming so automatically recognizable that it, for a second, seems like I’ve been here longer than two months. I can gauge the time and distance traveled by almost any landmark, street name or swerve in the street.

I amuse myself with my thoughts and my iPod., mercifully kept in the breast pocket of my jacket. I worried about exposing it and my cell phone to the cold but was relieved to hear the worst that usually happens to electronics is the freezing of LCD screens and alkaline batteries.
The first few walks were a brisk jaunt on the north edge of town, with the moon – and sometimes the aurora borealis – to please my eyes, but a cloudy fall has limited my entertainment to music and kicking packed clumps of frozen snow.

When I arrive at the bar, I usually head directly for the restroom to hand-comb my beanie-matted hair and, recently, wash the ice off my beard that formed from my crystalized breath.
The DJ group that spins every week is called Hangover Lounge. They dabble with soul-inspired rap and harder beats but generally stick to pop tunes from the '50s and '60s. Sometimes the mix becomes too overbearing for bar conversation, but

Because it’s a Tuesday, the place is near-empty. This, for many people, means a poor socializing atmosphere. Not me. I grab my first beer, usually an Alaskan Brewery pint of some sort, and nudge into a conversation. From this alone, I’ve rounded up a Tuesday Night Crew of sorts. They’re mostly hippies and free spirits that either grew up in Fairbanks or go to UAF.

There’s Zeb, the gay model who moved to Portland three years ago and realized how rough big cities can be. He’s better for the experience, I think.

Then there’s John, musician (including Hangover Lounge) by night and short-order cook by day. He seems to take his cooking as seriously as his music, and he’s shared stories with me about surviving in a hot kitchen and the transition to -40 degrees outside.

And that’s not to mention Emily the constant dancer, Joel who wears glasses without lenses, Gwen the gleeful flirt, Lauren the brewer ... well, you get the idea. I’ve got a Tuesday posse.

We drink, we dance and we part for the week. Depending on how much ale I’ve enjoyed, I usually have to stop once or twice to write my name in the snow. Back in Florida, I could put off bathroom breaks for hours. In the cold? Fifteen minutes, tops.

Then comes Wednesday. I always have lofty plans for Wednesday – hiking, exploring, self-empowering activities – but well, I’m usually pretty hung over. Nevertheless, I push on, only to realize I lack the proper equipment to do so.

My first foray into exploring some of the winter trails was promising. I walked about three miles on a path north of UAF, fighting a snow flurry that continually strengthened. I was able to snap a few shots but the snow was a bother and I didn’t want to ruin my camera.

I'm not trying to look smooth, that's just the closest thing I could force to a smile.

This trail looks inviting but it's actually an amazingly tiring walk. There's treelimbs and roots buried under the fresh snow, so I nearly tripped four or five times.

Yeah, it's a booger shot, but I wanted to give the trees some scope of size.

Does this trail dead-end or never end? I honestly don't remember.

I decided to further explore that site the next week, but it had been closed to hiking because it was a groomed cross-country skiing trail. I attacked the same hill from the other side and got as far as a mile into it, before being blocked by another groomed trail.

Last week, I discovered a cool indoor driving range behind Play It Again Sports. It’s a simulated experience, but still, it’ll keep my already-shabby swing from deteriorating.

Even though there’s limited light, I plan on using the next few weekends to explore the nearby towns of Fox, North Pole, ect. It’s not exactly tourist season, but I’m sure they got some cool stuff to see somewhere in the tiny towns ‘round here.

Looking back: A France

2007-11-05T15:42:00.000-08:00

(Ed. note: From time to time, I'll enter my memoirs of a trip to France I took from June 24 to July 4. It was the beginning of all the traveling I did this year and, I suspect, had a lot of influence in my decision to move to Alaska. Normal posts will come when they will; that's all I can say, since I'm in a bit of a writers funk. Oh, and this content comes to you without a second read, so please excuse any errors/faults in story structure.)

Prologue

The sun had just disappeared in Lyon and the dusk was too subtle for me to notice that night would soon fall. I soon was stumbling up and down the pint-sized mountain Fourviere without sunlight or my windbreaker, which was a godsend on these cool French nights. The Celsius was dipping, and I was in a pickle.

It was 10h45, and I needed a way back to the hostel fast. I ditched my plan to find an epicerie and some cheap wine. I could overpay for beer back at the auberge, warm up and make a friend or two.

I dipped through a path that led from Lyon’s Notre Dame to a street about halfway down Fourviere, taking leopardish strides that my lanky frame favors when on steep declines. The zig-zag path cut through a rose garden with no roses. It still smelled of roses though, which was kind of surreal. Two or three couples gave me nasty looks as I galloped past, briefly spoiling their romance. They must have been tourists; French couples would have just kept on kissing.

Thwomp. Thwomp. My 180 pounds were doing all they could to drag me to a tumbling grassy trip with a rocky finish at the bottom. Near Vieux Lyon at the end of the path, I caught the rolling eyes of a brunette on a cell phone. She hushed as I passed and waited until I was about 5 feet past her to continue blabbing in garbled French. She had a valley-girl accent, even though we were in the Rhone Valley and not San Fernandina.

Not much time to ponder that. I had a new shortcut to consider. The garden path exited to a road that took too gentile of a descent for my schedule allowed ... but on the right side there was a chance to make up some time. There was a field that seemed to head straight down the mountain. The gate leading to it was smashed open – never a good sign – and a step on the other side that led to another zig-zag path that countered Fourviere’s steepness. There was a step, although there apparently had been two more on the mini-staircase on the other side of the gate.

Once again, not a good sign. In America, this is a top candidate to place a "Trespassers will be disemboweled" sign. But the road seemed so ... long, especially to my burning thigh and gluteus muscles that were threatening to go on strike at any moment.

One hop down the step (gingerly, as it was made of thin plywood) and the first things that caught my attention were the other two steps, one bent in half inside the stair casing, the other a few feet down the decline. I realized that I had not been the first one to challenge these steps, and that others had not been as graceful (or lucky) as I. The steps were shoddy and homemade, and a slip in balance would have sent me tumbling with scraps of plywood in tow.

Undaunted, I surveyed the path and began to amble. But then, that itch. That gut reaction I have when I catch a new route in my peripheral vision. I stopped. There was one more option.
It wasn’t really a trail, just a discernible line of dead grass – maybe made by feet – that went straight down the hill. It took a sheer angle for a bout but leveled off in the places where the zig-zag path crossed it, kind of like the side of a ziggurat. It went all the way to ... well, I couldn’t see beyond the trees at what I supposed was the bottom.

My mind was on the fence.

It’s dangerous. I can do it. I could slip. Not a problem if I catch myself on one of the ziggurat levels. I’m alone thousands of miles from home. And I came here to take risks.

So my legs cast the deciding vote.

The plan was to use grips on the soles of my Converses to slow my descent on the dips and restore my balance on level ground. I’d done it plenty on the foothills of the Blue Ridge mountains. No sweat.

Maybe my legs were too weak from averaging 10 miles a day. Maybe I was too top-heavy. Maybe I took the first step with too much confidence – because the second and the third followed too quickly.

The level ground did give me time to adjust, enough to fall backward instead of forward. Instinctively, my palms slapped the ground first, and the angle of the slope made it a short spill backward. But I was still heading down, planted on the soles of my shoes and palms of my hands like a bobsled.

One level of the ziggurat passed without impeding my progress. I just skidded right over it. Then a second, and a third. I was at the mercy of the hill, which was feeling more like a mountain by the second.

Injury never concerned me. Neither did the trees at the bottom or the stupid logic that sent me careening down a French mini-mount. My thoughts were of a single memory of when my voyage began, when I proclaimed:

"WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING?"

It was an honest question disguised as a giddy shriek. My dad had just driven me over the Howard-Franklin Bridge. The sun was directly overhead even though it was not yet noon, making every color seem more vivid. Even the dull brown of the I-275 pavement seemed cartoonishly bright, seeming to have a light of its own.

It was a perfect day to feel adventurous – everything seemed like a live-action comic book, not real at all – but at the moment, my anxiety was in command. After all, who sends a 22-year old who can’t balance a checkbook any more than he can charm an asp to Europe with your $600, your credit card and an itinerary as loose as "here’s a list of the hostels I’m probably staying at, and the days I’ll probably be there."

That weighed on me. I didn’t deserve it, having pilfered my parents’ bank account during my final semester in college – an eight-month whirlwind of parties, high-cost professional (resume materials, postage, software) and personal (drinking, gluttony) expenditures and little progress in becoming a journalist.

Ah, yes. Then there were my career worries. I had sent out no less than 15 resumes in the past two weeks, and anyone who wanted to call me would be greeted by a voicemail that deferred them to my e-mail address. It seemed like blowing an interview in advance.

But mostly, I was anxious because I am by no means a world-class traveler. I generally detest big cities and often become quiet and subdued when unacquainted with my surroundings. Would the jovial, outgoing Josh arrive in Paris, or would I become docile and return with only a few photos and souvenirs, bereft of any experiences worth telling?

But I didn’t have too much time to dwell on it, as the Murano was soon under the American Airlines sign at Tampa International Airport and my dad bounded out to the cargo hatch, grabbing my luggage. It was a hunter-green rolling suitcase with my backpack inside protected by cardboard. At Charles De Gaulle, I was to chuck the green case and the cardboard.

I gave my dad a quick hug and breathed deeply as I walked into the airport.

Umm ... yeah ... so ...

2007-10-30T13:57:00.000-07:00

So my great adventure has hit a snag. You see, I'm not one to turn my blog into a diary, the usual red flag of a boring read. But for me to continue on even a weekly basis, that's what it might have to be.

And I won't let that happen.

The trip up was packed with awe and an adventurous spirit that I can't duplicate while working your typical 40-hour week and living a standard day-to-day life. Sure, I could try to make my trips to grocery stores and auto repairs a breathtaking epic, but I've hit a creative lull -- mainly because I don't have an outstanding event to springboard a competent and engaging post. Especially one that is suitable for my parents, grandma and boss.

But, there is one thing I can do as I wait for this tide to ebb.

It wasn't long ago I was on a 10-hour flight home from Paris, scrawling my experiences on a notebook of drafting paper. I wrote two days into the trip in about 10 pages, so Wednesday I'll transcribe that and finish the story up. My incomplete Webshots album can be found here. That, also, will be completed soon.

When the occasion calls for it, I'll update my Alaska life, but it's kind of lather-rinse-repeat as it stands.

It's the little things ...

2007-10-17T17:40:00.000-07:00

As I ambled on the frost-covered sidewalk back and forth between the laundry room and the Box in pajama pants, a wifebeater and sandals, I realized how much I've changed my day-to-day routines since leaving Florida.

It wasn't a year ago that my family took a four-day vacation in Saluda, N.C., and my brother, Mike, his wife, Nikki, and I were blown away by the snow and icicles. We considered ourselves tough for hiking around in 19-degree temperatures, bundled in nearly every article of clothing we owned.

It wasn't two years ago that I was shivering in my car waiting for the Park and Ride bus on the UF campus at 7:30 a.m. It couldn't have been lower than 30 degrees.

Even further back, I used to live in a converted porch which would dip down to 35-40 degrees at night during the winter. Every morning I would wake up and zip from the comfort of my blankets to curl up next to the space heater. At 14, it was better than a cup of coffee.

Now? I love 19 degrees because I know I'll be considering it "warm" in a month.

So yeah, things have changed, but it's the smaller things that make me realize how far north I am.

-- I now carry two sets of car keys so I don't lock myself out when I start the Kia to warm the engine 10 minutes before I drive.

-- There's a full set of clean clothes in the backseat of my car, and it's not because I'm lazy.

-- When I slip on ice (on foot or in the Kia), all I think is "Oh, darn, ice again."

-- I can tell if a girl has a good body when she's wearing three layers of clothing.

-- I've perfected the heel-stomping maneuver that efficiently removes snow from shoes before entering my house.

And it isn't until one of these little things comes into play that I think, "What exactly happened in the past three months, and how did it lead me here?"

'Snow Biggie

2007-10-11T15:39:00.000-07:00

"How's the weather up there?" my dad asked Saturday. I had just waken and told him it was cloudy, cold and bound to snow soon. Then I pulled back my curtain.

Everything was white.

I flung on some pants and shoes and darted outside, almost slipping on my icy doorstep. The snow was beautiful, the kind you can let a flake land in your hand and to inspect its patterns.

I had to enjoy the snow judiciously, though. It was quite possibly the craziest day in college football since Pete Carroll chucked a fake Reggie Bush off a building. Still, I managed to sneak in a 30-minute sightseeing trip of the town covered in snow. It looks like a completely different place.

The sight seeing trip did have one drawback: I had to drive, which scared the living hell outta me. Flashbacks of the Kia nearly swinging its back end off mountain cliffs kept my speed at a good 10 mph under the limit.

When I got to the office, Bob hummed to me, "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas."

"Not really," I replied with a chuckle. "Christmas at home is about 65 degrees and sunny."

"Hope you don't want to see the ground for another eight months," Julie said. She was wrong, too. Fairbanks warmed into the 40s on my birthday, and I got to see the grass one final time.

Speakin'a'which, despite being 5,000 miles away, my friends did a good job of making my birthday awesome. Last year, I kept it quiet that I was turning 22, but there was no keeping my 23rd a secret. I got more mail and packages on Oct. 9 than the rest of my stay in Alaska combined.

And my newfound friends were just as giving. On Sunday, a newswriter, Christi, and a sportswritier, Adam, took me to the Silver Gulch Brewery for a lunch (they have a really good pale ale and a spicy-as-Hell pizza, my kind of place). The eve of my birthday, Rich, Adam and Bob grabbed me a few rounds at The Big I. On my actual birthday, I spent the day enjoying the snow and scenery. I helped my 54-year-old Korean neighbor move out of her apartment, which took a little over an hour with her son helping, and I got $50 in return.

Hmmm, expendable cash, celebratory event ... I hit a few different bars and ended up at The Marlin, where some of the regulars bought me a beer/shot.

All in all, a success.

(By the way, both photos are from the day after my birthday, so the snow coverage is pretty thin because a lot of it melted and there's been no flurries since.)

A big pule of mush

2007-10-06T11:50:00.000-07:00

(Ed. note: This is the last "catching up" post. From here on out they're all recent events. Oh and if you want to see what the town looks like, this is the view from the News-Miner's south newsroom window. The ugly yellow and green building is The Big I and the street is Cushman St. You're pretty much looking at downtown from its northernmost point.

Oh, and thanks to Rod and Julie for all the photos and the great time, as follows:)

OK, OK. I’d been getting by on TV, bars and sports. It seemed that I was going to head into winter without doing anything truly Alaskan. Thankfully, Julie and assistant managing editor Rod, her husband, changed that.
Last week, they took me dog-mushing.

Actually, it was quasi-mushing. There’s not much snow here yet. The first flurries fell in the higher hills around town recently. So no snow, thus no sled. Instead, a four-wheeler. Simple change, right? Well ...

The first thing I needed to do was get into some warmer clothes. Rod loaned me a thick coverall, a pair of boots the size of my thighs and an extra fleece pullover. I looked about 30 pounds overweight, which suited me just fine because that meant freezing was out of the question.

After getting the dogs in their harnesses, Julie and I headed off for a 2-mile run.

The ride to the top of the hill was exhilarating. Through the trees I could see Mt. McKinley and all kinds of wildlife. Ravens flew overhead, teasing the dogs. It was also my first taste of altitude since leaving the Rockies.

The dogs are awesome. They were more obedient and smarter than I’d ever known canines to be. I’m used to the dumb-as-dirt, "chew on everything and chase cars" kind of pup. But these dogs knew what they were doing better than I did. They knew to keep the line tight, so whatever speed the four-wheeler went, they went as well.

And to clear up a misconception I had: You don’t need whips in dog-mushing. A simple "Gi!" for a left turn and "Ha!" for a right turn will suffice.

Then on the ride down, it was my turn to drive.

I’ve never driven a manual before, but I know the principle, so I wasn’t too worried. The thing is, I was averaging about ten questions a minute amid my excitement.

Adding to the communication difficulties was the fact that when my face gets really cold, I need to start forming words with my mouth about 2 seconds before I say them. It’s the only way I can enunciate properly, and even then, it’s hit-or-miss.

So when I asked, "Is this the clutch?" Julie, probably about five questions behind, said, "Uh, yeah."

Anyone with 10 ounces of common sense would have known that they were hitting the brake instead of the clutch. So it wasn’t Julie’s fault I was nearly flinging her off the ATV every time I stalled. The many ditches, tree roots and stumps I drove into weren’t her fault either.

We made it down alive, though I’m sure Julie’s back was somewhat worse for the wear. It was a hell of a good time, no matter my glowing shade of green.

Getting by

2007-10-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

(I fell behind on my posts because my pictures are on my laptop and my words are on my desktop, and I was just too darn lazy to combine the two efforts. I've got another post already created. It will be up tomorrow.)

On my third night in Fairbanks, I nuked a Banquet dinner and sat on my couch/home. Bob walked in from work and joked, "It eats!"

As jovial as his statement was, it did strike a nerve. I hadn’t been eating much since arriving, most likely due to the stress of a new job, town and lifestyle. I was getting pale and thin.

Moving into the Box changed this. All the lifting, cleaning and set-up work really got me into a rhythm. Also, I was living on the north side of the river, which put me closer to some of the prettier views in town. The changing color of the leaves was motivation enough to get outside and start running again, and that got my appetite back quickly. The color returned to my cheeks as I discovered Creamer’s Field:

And also the view from atop UAF (it sits on a hill overlooking the city):

But of course, the days aren’t always beautiful here. In fact, right now it’s in a summer-winter transition (I hesitate to call it "fall") in which it’s mostly cold and rainy. So how do Fairbanksans entertain themselves when going outside is as fun as a novocaine-free tooth extraction?

TV! And forget your regularly scheduled programming. The commercials are the real entertainment. This is just the tip of the iceberg:

By my second "weekend" (Tuesday and Wednesday are my days off), I was ready to hit the town. The plan was to light up a cigar and walk south until I hit a bar I liked. A tour director I met in Whitehorse told me about a place called the Iris. I found it across the street from the Westmark Hotel I’d been stealing wireless Internet from.

Hmmm. Maybe the Iris is good on a Friday, but certainly not a Wednesday. The same can be said for the other bars in downtown Fairbanks. I grabbed a brew at The Big I and listened to a bad rendition of "Mr. Jones" (it was open mic night) before going home and shrugging off a tepid night.

The next "weekend," I found a few bars and music spots to hit up, mostly near UAF. I’ve been gravitating toward the university when looking for social activities because that’s where all the young, non-military people live. So far, it’s been fruitful. There’s some good local music around here – the DJs are especially notworthy.

And I’ve found that just because I’m out of college doesn’t mean I’m an outsider there. The UAF bar, The Pub, is welcoming to old fogeys like me. Plus, I can always just say I’m a grad student.

The Job

2007-09-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

After four years of intense journalistic training, I went to my first job and felt like I was fresh out of high school. Never mind that I’m at least four years younger than anyone else at the office, the real root of this feeling was that half of my job requires something I have little experience in.

I’m no graphic artist, but I can put a page together well enough ... or so I thought. My first night was quite frustrating, as I had to ask at least 50 questions to my colleagues for simple, nit-picky stuff.

And then there’s the local style. Everywhere that’s not Alaska is known as Outside. If you’re not in Fairbanks or near the coast, you live in the Bush. It’s only a matter of time before Alaskans are referred to Us, and everyone else is called Them.

But by my second week on the job, I was calmer and getting into the groove. My desk chief, Julie, is a fellow UF grad. She and I began shooting the breeze about Gainesville 1984 vs. Gainesville 2007. So far we haven’t run out of college stories.

The last character on the copy desk is Gary, whom I briefly mentioned a few posts back. He’s still got the mindset of one of Them. He’s a Texas guy in Alaska, not an Alaskan. A politics junkie, Gary’s good for an oddball story or a different perspective.

Finally secure enough in my work to look up from my computer from time to time, I found my desk is in a prime position. I’m right next to the sports desk, so I can always strike up a good conversation. And, best of all, I’m facing the newsroom’s only TV. Everyone except Gary loves football, so there’s always a good college or pro game playing.

Saturday nights, the copy desk and sportswriters hit up The Big I ... followed by early Sunday mornings when the Bucs play at 9 a.m. ... which leads to another copy desk shift until 1 a.m. It’s by choice, but weekends up here leave me as tapped-out as home-game weekends at UF.

Looking back, the things that stumped me were quirks that change from newspaper to newspaper, so I shouldn’t feel too bad. But still, I’m s-l-o-w at paginating, and I think I could be doing a lot better.

The Box

2007-09-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

(Ed. note: Because I’ve been lagging behind, the next few posts are going to cover general aspects of life, the move, ect. instead of chronologically so I can get back to posting about recent events. To do this, I will be posting daily until Friday.

After that, there will be a new post every Monday and Thursday. The temperature’s dropping, and it’s gonna get weird.)

My first week in my new place wasn’t rough, but I’m glad it’s over. Without cable or Internet, I was completely cut off from most forms of outside communication.

There was, of course, the radio. There’s only one news station and only one sports station here, but to create world and national news pages every night, I have to go into work having some idea of what’s going on. I soon got used to having it on all the time. It would sometimes be a matter of hours before I heard a Braves score, and since new news is thrown into a loop with the rest of the stories, I might hear one new story an hour. But that was worth it.

And besides, I was forced to kill time by cleaning up and setting up the Box. My stuff would still be on the floor if I had cable when I moved in.

But while my stuff wasn’t left on the floor, I was. I had brought an inflatable mattress to sleep until I could afford a proper bed. The thing is, I had no other furniture either; the things you don’t think about until you get there. I sat Indian-style on the floor to read and use the computer (delicately balancing the keyboard on my thighs was the tricky part) and ate off my kitchen counter standing up.

After a quick trip to the hardware store, I had the essentials: a hammer, nails, screwdriver, toaster and coffeemaker. The rest could wait.

It was Tuesday, my first day off when I finally hung my TV. The cable wasn’t getting hooked up until the next Saturday, but at least I could watch some DVDs.

Television was not a luxury I had used much in the past few weeks. Other than one day of SportsCenter on Bob’s couch, I hadn’t actually sat down and watched TV on my whole trip. Sure, I’d watched a few at bars and at work, but I was busy doing other stuff, too.

I took full advantage and watched the entire "Lord of the Rings" trilogy in two days.

A natural part of any moving experience is realizing what you don’t have at the moment you need it. This requires frequent trips to Lowe’s, Wal-Mart and Safeway (the local grocery chain), so I took the opportunity to explore the towns stores while running these errands. There’s lots of specialty stores with local flavor; there’s lots of mining equipment and surplus military supplies. On my way back from Fred Meyer (an upscale Wal-Mart), I passed a green neon poster board with "MREs: $60/case" written in permanent marker.

Usually, I despise having to go to Wal-Mart so much. Like in Florida, the one here greets you with an old smiling vet and sends you away with poor service, and it draws some of the trashiest people the town has to offer. But since it’s upgrading to a Super Wal-Mart, there’s new stuff every time I go inside. Case in point: I went there for duct tape the day they began selling futons, something that was hard to find cheap here. I forgot to buy the duct tape and got my first workout in two months lifting the futon into my car.

With that and a computer desk, I felt as though I was living like the nouveaux richs. Hell, I still do. I got running water and no roomates, so I figure I'm doing better than 95% of recent college grads.

Here's a little tour of the place (It's not 4 minutes long, only 1:39. I dunno why it says 4:31.)

Deleted Scenes 2 -- Da' Beers

2007-09-25T12:01:00.000-07:00

By special request, here's the rundown of the beers I tried along the way.

Regina, Sask.

Bushwakker Sodbuster Brown -- This English brown ale has the richness and aroma I expect from a microbrewed brown ale, but it's not worth going out of your way to order this more than once. It's a slight improvement over Newcastle, but you have to have it shipped from Canada.
Regina Pale Ale -- Definitely a worthy beer for the shipping price. It's bitterness isn't cringe-worthy (caveat: I'm a fan of bitterness, so that's just my palate) and it compliments a buffalo burger quite well, though I would steer clear of BBQ sauce in this scenario.
Dupont Moinette Saison -- The Bushwakker Brewpub serves no other saison, not because saisons don't sell well, but because the owner says, "All other saisons are $#@! compared to this." I wouldn't go that far. Sure, it smells like a horse blanket and tastes like someone dropped a lemon Warhead in an India pale ale, but so have all the homebrewed saisons I tried in Tampa.

Whitecourt, Alberta

Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale -- Umm, is this really an IPA? It says so on the bottle, but it also says otherwise, as the alcohol content is lower than what I'm told it should be (I must confess most of my beer knowledge is secondhand). Also, there's little body, and I like to practically chew my ales. It was the only Canadian brew at the lodge, but I switched to Coors after just one.

Whitehorse, Yukon

Chikloot Lager -- If not for the label, I'd have thought it was a Budweiser.
Yukon Gold -- A good ale I had with some fish 'n' chips. Nothing spectacular, but a solid addition to any beer-drinker's repertoire.
Yukon Amber -- Flavorful and sweet, I happened upon this amber at the hotel bar, when another patron changed his mind and wanted a Gold. I was chatting with the wait staff at the time and the bartender said, "What am I going to do with this?" I grinned and offered my services. It was a free liter mug, so I may be a bit biased. The only drawback: When it gets warm (about 60 degrees), the sweetness becomes overbearing.

Somewhere near the Alaska-Yukon border

Hamm's -- This is a cheap American-style lager from Milwaukee that tastes better than the Beast or Old Mil, but that's about the best I can say for it. I got a 12 pack for $2 because the store was closing.

Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks Lager -- The only brew I've tried from the Fairbanks-based Silver Gulch Brewery. It didn't knock me off my socks, but it was refreshing.
Alaskan Gold -- A step down from the Yukon Gold (since I had fish 'n' chips with it, too, it was an accurate comparison)
Alaskan Amber -- This will probably end up being my staple beer. It's flavorful but not too heavy. Also, it's on tap everywhere in town.
Alaskan Coffee Brown -- A good night-cap beer, it leaves no strong aftertaste and is nice and heavy. A little too much coffee flavor though, which weighs it down more than necessary.
Alaskan IPA -- Whooo, doggie! This has some kick. Because of the climate, lagers are the specialty up here, so maybe I was caught off-guard by an honest-to-God IPA (especially after Alexander Keith's). It's not for every night, but I certainly plan to keep a few handy when the occasion calls for it.

Days 2-4 BC

2007-09-24T14:35:00.000-07:00

The 7:30 train was no problem this morning; I was ready for it. That’s because the neighbors’ dogs had me up at 7. I hit up McCafferty’s for an Americano and a comfy place to call renters (The same girls were working, I was pleased to see). By noon I had appointments to check out three places.

The first was Dixon Apartments. It was reasonably priced but its location was questionable. On one hand, it was across from a Westmark hotel, where major tour companies bring visitors, so it couldn’t be that bad. But then again, I had passed about four or five drunks on the dozen or so blocks I walked from McCafferty’s.

The next two places were side-by-side and owned by the same guy. The first was a duplex that had a bar and washer-dryer combo, but it needed some sprucing up and the price was a little steep.

The second place was a converted garage. Had I lived in Florida, this would have been my No. 1 choice. It was a bachelor’s pad to the fullest. “I don’t show this to women,” my guide, Jeff, told me. “This place was made for guys.” The coolest aspect was the garage door, which exposed up the living room with a screen on the outside, a perfect place to grill or tailgate a ball game. If I were in Florida …

There were polished copper pipes snaking in and out of the walls, and the bathroom had the heating system, a contraption straight out of a mad scientist’s lab. Still, it was a garage, from it’s cement floors to its huge front opening -- not exactly where you want to be when the high is -27. Although Jeff assured me I would never freeze, I was too much of a greenhorn to take his word for it.

I spent the afternoon basking in the glow of Bob’s 57-inch plasma, the main perk of my stay there. I got a call offering to show me an efficiency on the north side of town. It was small ... OK, that’s an understatement. It was a freaking box with a door. But… It was liveable and the only place that included electricity in the bill. After all, it beats the couch or living in a basement listening to domestic disputes and, (maybe worse) the ensuing reconciliations.

By the end of the day, I had applications to live in the Box, the place on Drunk Avenue and a Money Pit of a duplex.

The next day, I dropped off all three applications, and at each one there was a member of the military applying as well. Great.

I should have seen that coming, though. Fairbanks is surrounded by military bases, which are a vital part of the community. Many of the young boys here have been dreaming of being an Army/Air Force man since they could walk. In fact, the bases sometimes have "family days" where they let their 3-year-old young’uns hold assault rifles. I kid you not.

I figured I had no chance against anyone with a government-secured income, and contemplated my life on the couch for the next month. I could make it work, I thought.

But I had bigger worries, as tonight was my first night at work.

I soon found out my worries were pointless, since my supervisor wasn’t back from vacation. I just edited page printouts and talked college football with the sports staff until midnight. Rich drove me home (I walked there to give the Kia a break) and he regaled me of his hiking trips over a beer.

I nodded off to the glow of the plasma, knowing the night was over and I was going to have to get very familiar with this couch.

I was wrong on both accounts.

At 2 a.m., Bob woke me. “The aurora’s out, Josh. Wanna see it?”

I don’t even remember leaving the house. I was immediately outside in 45-degree weather wearing a short-sleeved Buccaneers shirt and pajama pants, my head cocked back toward the sky.

And wow. It was faint, but no less amazing -- a blue light wavering across the sky, waning and reappearing throughout. It wasn’t supposed to be active that night. Maybe it was a sign …

The next morning, I expanded my apartment search, which matched my frustration. Basement apartments were in play, and my price range raised. A Post-It pad I took from the News-Miner’s HR office was now completely used up, each sticker covered in my scribble with a phone number and description of a rental.

My living situation was barely on my mind at work. I had six hours to figure out how to design one-fourth of a newspaper, something I had never done professionally (only in class). Yup, there’s nothing like pressure to get your mind off frustration.

Then my phone rang and I scurried to a nearby hallway to answer. It was Renee Hassebroek, the landlord of the Box. Was I still looking for a place to live? Why yes.

I finger-rolled the Post-It pad into the trash can near my desk and got back to editing the national news page.

Deleted Scenes

2007-09-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

I pondered buying a rifle and living here for a while, but then realized I don’t know how to hunt, cook or even load a rifle outside of the musket style I saw in “The Patriot.”

Ladies and gentlemen, D.J. Grantham!

This is Magic Duck, whom I found in the Yukon Territory. The water below him is actually a shade of deep blue, but Magic Duck made every picture of him look like this. Maybe he’s not magic, just sparkly, but don’t tell him that. It might hurt his feelings.

One of Watson Lake’s in-town attractions is the Sign Post Forest. Nothing from Bradenton in there, but it’s cheesiness did remind me of home.

Now, what's funny is: I don't even remember taking this picture. ... Oh, wait. This is Wyoming. I literally realized that while typing. I gotta lay off the sleep deprivation.

1st day BC (Bob's Couch)

2007-09-20T12:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry it’s been so long, guys, but life’s pretty busy right now. Until today, that is. Long story short: late night, late rise, comfy seating, “Top Chef” marathon. So yeah, I was on hangover cruise control and in the perfect situation to reflect on the past two weeks.

But enough about now, let’s start where I left off: my first morning in Fairbanks.

I woke to the whistling of the 7:30 to Anchorage passing about six blocks to the north. I hoped this was a rarity, but if it runs this early on Labor Day, I doubted tomorrow it would be any different.

The coffee table was littered with Sports Illustrateds and Rolling Stones. I picked up an early-August Stone and leafed through it for a few hours. The only bathroom in the house was connected to a bedroom that Bob was renting out to another copy editor, so I didn’t want to rouse him too early. I was halfway through an article about “To Catch a Predator,” when a shirtless Bob ambled into the bathroom, and I was secure that it wouldn’t be rude to use it next.

Refreshed and eager to spend a day away from the highway, I walked to Cushman Street (the main downtown road) to grab a coffee and some wireless Internet to begin my house search. Bob assured me I could stay as long as I want, but I didn’t want to stay long. Along with the Alaskan Railroad wake-up calls, I was 2 inches taller than the couch I was sleeping on and my luggage was still mostly in my Kia. I also had six boxes waiting in the News-Miner’s darkroom that I was eager to unpack.

I found a place called McCafferty’s (the “Caffe” was in a different color) on Cushman next to City Hall. No wireless Internet, but there were pretty girls behind the counter so I stayed for a cup of apple cider.

I asked the girls if they knew of good places to live. One still lived with her parents. The other was a University of Alaska-Fairbanks student from Anchorage, a good background for my query, but she suggested renting someone’s basement or a dry cabin (I.e., no running water). She then masterfully mixed two packets of apple cider flavoring into hot water. Oh well, they were still pretty.

With no leads, I grabbed the classifieds from a News-Miner floating around the coffeehouse and decided my first course of action should be to walk the town and survey what constitutes the “wrong side of the tracks.” I’m looking for a cheap place, but it’s not cheap if TV gets stolen once a month.

One of the first things I noticed about Fairbanks is how ugly some of the homes and apartments are. Chipped paint, filthy windows, rusty gutters. It’s not that they’re bad places, though. So much money goes into insulation, pipes that can stand the cold and comprehensive heating systems that painting and outside aesthetics are usually the last item on a landlord’s budget. Besides, no matter how you decorate your house, it won’t stand up to -50 degrees for long, so you have to redecorate almost every summer, when it will then have to withstand 20 hours of sunlight for a month. Plus, most apartments are former military barracks or miner’s camps stacked upon each other, made for efficiency and warmth instead of looks.

By the way, the weather was very pleasant. I left with a sweatshirt on in the morning, but once the sun shone through, I was walking around town in just a tee shirt and jeans.

After reaching my limits on foot, I returned to Bob’s and met Rich, the copy editor who lives there. He’s a semi-earthy guy, an odd balance of granola-crunching hiker and beer-chugging sports fanatic. At 35, he’s hiked the Appalachian Trail and two other major American trails but his biggest accomplishment is yet to come. He’s leaving in January to hike through the New Zealand mountains and rehike the three American ones in record pace. He has no problem living without modern technology for months at a time.

But that’s hard to tell when you meet him in an urban setting. He scarfs down instant dinners and is constantly zoned into the TV. He’s a Minnesotan, so his “outs” are “oots.” And despite his 6-foot-5, 220-pound build, he has a mousey voice that takes a few conversations to get attuned to.

Still unsure of when I was starting my job, Rich took me to human resources. We agreed on a tentative starting date of Wednesday (two days from then). The office was sparsely populated, since the paper tries to work as few people as possible on Labor Day, but I met the metro editor, Rod Boyce, and Gary, a copy editor from Houston whom I quizzed on the phone before taking the job.

I walked back to the house and jumped in the Kia to explore more of the town. I’ve always figured the best way to learn a place is to get lost in it, and that’s exactly what I did. I curled around the north end of town on College Road to UAF, which sits on a hill on the northwest side, overlooking downtown Fairbanks on one end and the mountains on the other.

I found the local grocery chain, Safeway, and grabbed some Banquet meals and laundry detergent. Navigating my way out of the parking lot was a chore, and I accidentally exited into an apartment complex parking lot. It was Executive Apartments, a place I had scoped out in Bradenton, so I stopped and knocked on the door. The place was overpriced and the stairwell smelled of urine, likely a nighttime shelter for a bum getting out of the cold. I was worried that this was the norm.

After finding my way back to Bob’s, I lit up a cigar, cracked open a Hamm’s and combed the classifieds.

Day 10 -- Tok, Alaska, to Fairbanks, Alaska

2007-09-16T03:56:00.000-07:00

Finally! Fairbanks! The conclusion of my quest. The answer to my 10-day question. No more packing my stuff in and out of my car. No more fumbling with maps at stoplights. No more driving through suburban neighborhoods hitting “refresh network list” continually until I find my victim, usually named linksys.

At the end. Finished.

Now what the hell do I do?

My morning in Tok was rather frustrating. I had to get some laundry done (no underwear or pants left), but I had no cash, having cleared my wallet before entering Canada. Since Tok was a ghost town -- like most Northern highway cities in September -- all the ATMs were dry. With no coins, I slumped back to the laundry room, scooped up the clothes I had left there and trudged toward the door.

But luckily, the manager of the hotel was doing his final load before skipping town. He stopped me and handed me $4 in quarters. “I get it all back anyway,” he said.

His name was Dell. He moved to Alaska to help construct the pipeline, and now tends to the hotel and spends his winters hunting from his cabin outside of Delta Junction. That’s the kind of thing you can do up here: live off of whatever you hunt. No wonder there are few taxes. There certainly aren’t the resources to track down anyone who wants to go missing in this vast of a state.

I left for Fairbanks at about noon. I called the desk chief, who was on vacation, and she gave me the phone number of the sports editor, Bob. I was set to crash at his place until I found an apartment. Somehow, I turned a 5 into a 3 while writing down his home number, so I arrived in Fairbanks with only the address of the newspaper office and a vague memory of a map of the downtown area.

That was good enough to get me to the News-Miner, which was closed. They don’t print on Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas or Memorial Day, which means that newsroom employees get the day before off. Yup, 30 minutes here and already things have drastically changed; Dec. 24 is my new Christmas.

It was sunny and about 75 degrees, so I pulled off my sweatshirt and roamed around the immediate area of the building, inspecting the local bars that would likely become my regular 2 a.m. tune-up.

I caught a glimpse of someone walking into the paper from across the street, and flagged him down when he got near a window on the first floor. It was probably a janitor, but I was running with an exploratory spirit.

It paid off. He was Eric, the business writer. Every newspaper needs someone present at all decent hours. Eric had pulled the short straw and was stuck in the office, just in case something explodes or the mayor is shot.

He didn’t have Bob’s number (it turns out he has no cell phone, either), but he did have an address. He jotted down some directions in reporter scribble, gawd-awful chicken scratch I couldn’t have deciphered four years ago, before I begin writing like that myself.

Bob lives about seven blocks away from the News-Miner and about five from the downtown area. This area somehow maintains a well-to-do suburban appeal despite its location. I parked out front (Eric’s description of “a jungle of a front yard” was spot-on) and tried the doorbell. No one. I knocked. Nothing. Looks like I’d just have to wait for Bob to come home.

But then I heard a noise from inside. A shower. Good, I thought, at least he’s home. I took a walk along the nearby Chena River to kill time until he was out and dressed.

But en retour, I saw a car backing out onto Bob’s street. Was it the same car I had seen in his driveway? Looked like it, so I began frantically waving and running (this is the second time that day I had done it, and I was somewhat worried it would become my signature move). No avail. The car turned down Fourth Street and I tried knocking once more, but the house was certainly empty this time.

I camped out in my car with the windows down and passed time by writing the Tok part of this post. A 50-something man ambled by the car, walking in a swerving manner. I paid him no attention until he picked up some trash from Bob’s yard. It was him.

To say that Bob a local legend is putting it mildly. Robert Eley is pronounced just like Robert E. Lee, so anytime you forget his name, you can just ask for “The General,” and most locals will know who you’re talking about. He’s been on the city council, run for mayor and collected a mental dossier on nearly every resident of metropolitan Fairbanks. These days, he’s content with just being the News-Miner’s sports editor, operating the city museum and frequenting The Big I, Fairbanks’ most popular bar -- where you can order a “Bob Eley”: 50% vodka, 50% pink lemonade and a twist of lime.

He greeted me with a smile and a lazy-eyed grin, confessing he had just returned from a bar and was a little tipsy. Fine by me. He was head of a four-person sports staff whose coverage area was more than a million acres. This makes days off quite rare, so spending an afternoon with a few cold ones is warranted.

He took me inside and made a grand gesture toward the living room couch. “This is where your new life begins,” he said. He’s seen many new lives begin in that spot. Crashing at Bob’s is a News-Miner rite of passage.

We shot the breeze for a while as he picked carrots and celery from his garden. Yes, that’s right: Produce does grow up here. In fact, the veggies that can handle the all-light days of summer sprout quickly, and anyone with a garden can render a years worth of crops in three months.

We were talking next to a patch of fireweed that stands about 10 feet tall. Tour buses frequently drive by, as it’s the best example of fireweed in town. I din't belive him until one drove by.

We got dinner at Big Daddy’s Bar-BQ. I didn‘t want my first meal here to be something I could have back home, so I ordered the halibut fish ’n’ chips. Bob teased me, but I didn’t care. I figured I’ve had better barbeque somewhere in the South anyway.

After dinner, we headed to The Big I, the pub Bob had just retuned from. He bought me black & tans as we gave each other our biographies and waxed poetic about the upcoming NFL season.

We got home at about 1 a.m., and a fellow copy editor had left a message inviting me to a bonfire. It began with "Josh? Josh? Jo-osh? Josh? Are you there Josh? ..." And there I was, half-asleep, mostly drunk, hearing my name repeated 11 times. I laughed for about 10 minutes.

The last 10 days had caught up with me. I’ve never slept so well on a couch.

One more day...

2007-09-15T16:50:00.000-07:00

Internet's up at my place, but the Florida game ended in just enough time for me to get ready for work, so I'll probably paste my final day at 2 a.m. after a Saturday-night wind-down with the sports desk. So tomorrow, mes amis.

All is well, and it's starting to get a little nippy up here.

I'll be back

2007-09-11T01:01:00.000-07:00

For all of you waiting to read how my voyage into Fairbanks ends, it will be up on Saturday, when I finally get Internet service in my new apartment (actually, it's just an efficiency). Until then, my only connection to the Web is at work, where I'm too busy to post and too sheepish to check my Facebook messages. In fact I've got about 30 seconds to blurt this out before returning to proofreading.

Not only will The Diagonal cover my arrival into Fairbanks, but I'll attempt to take you along with me as I adjust to living 100 miles from the Arctic Circle. I'll be posting at least twice a week from here on out. This is the blog that never ends. Yes, It goes on and on, my friend. ...

So check back Saturday night. Thanks for reading.

Day 9 -- Whitehorse, Yukon, to Tok, Alaska

2007-09-04T12:13:00.000-07:00

Sorry for lagging behind, guys. I'm in Fairbanks trying to get my stuff together, so I'll finish the trip as soon as possible. Life's good.

My clock alarm woke me up at 7:30 that morning with a CBC talk show about the stock markets or the economy or something. I couldn’t really tell because my attention span was in a seller’s market. A few too many rounds of Yukon Gold pale ale will do that.

I was wearing last night on my sagging face and on my bloated belly. It was going to be an interesting drive to Alaska.

My first mission was to find a suitable place to participate in a fantasy football draft. I was prepped to do it at its original time at 6 a.m. from the comfort of my hotel room, but the time was changed to 2 p.m. Pacific sometime the day before. There was no chance of making it to Tok by then, and no way I could wait in Whitehorse past noon either, so I’d have to find wireless in the Yukon Territory with it’s two most populous cities already behind me.

Once again. Oooh. Aaaah. Big rocks coming out of the ground.

I was still blown away, but my drive today was three hours longer than my previous forays in to the Rockies. That helped restrain me from getting lost in hikes and scenic stops.

One thing I couldn’t help gaping at, however, was Lake Kulane (koo-lawn-ee). When I get my first long weekend, this is where I’ll be spending it.

I parked at an RV camp in Destruction Bay and bought an early lunch. The place had WiFi, so I decided to do the draft from there. I tried doing it outside, but it was too bright, so I resumed my familiar position of slouching in the driver’s seat and firmly lodging my laptop between my upper stomach and the steering wheel. (This by the way, is how most of The Diagonal’s content is posted.)

It was only noon, so I killed time by writing a blog post (Day 8) and e-mailing my contacts in Fairbanks. In the midst of writing, I didn’t notice a tall man just outside my open passenger side window. When he barked a “hello” at me, I nearly threw my laptop at him in self-defense.

The place was shutting down for the winter, and they were about to turn off their server, he told me. He was nice enough to let me know so I wouldn’t lose any unsaved data.

There were still a few outposts ahead with possible WiFi signals, so I wasn’t worried. But Labor Day weekend is shut-down time for most resorts in the Yukon. It’s prone to start snowing in a few weeks, and few businesses take the chance of staying open far into September.

So I missed the draft (which I later found out was bumped back 45 minutes) but who cares when this is where you were when you missed it:

The roads got rough about 100km from the border and the 90km/hr speed limit wasn’t suitable for the Kia. It’s not that they were too curved or unpaved, but there were dramatic dips and bumps. I was doing 80km/hr when I suddenly went airborne. I got out at the next rest area and gave my little black sedan a rest for being such a trooper.

I, on the other hand, was not ready to stay on the ground:

At 3:30 Pacific, I was back in the U.S. and fairly impressed by my new home. Customs were light, which gave me time to hit some scenic detours.

Yup, this is where I live. Stop on by any time.

Just over the border, I found a tiny gas station and fueled up. When I went inside, I remarked on how hard it was to find open stores on the highway this weekend. He laughed and said he was leaving tomorrow as well, so all prices were negotiable. I got a bag of trail mix for 50 cents and a 12-pack of Hamm’s for $2.

This made my first impression of Alaska a positive one.

I was missing a few college football games … nothing major … except maybe the biggest upset in the history of the sport, the VaTech opening ceremonies and, of course, the Gators game. After checking in to the hotel in Tok, I made a beeline to the lounge, where there was food, wireless internet and a TV. I talked trash with some Tennessee fans and a Texan bartender.

Sure, my college football ritual started at 5 p.m. Alaskan (9 p.m. Eastern) but I still had a ball. I was comparing stats and highlights online plus watching DeSean Jackson break Tennessee defenders ankles all while juggling a call to my family at the USF game and gobbling down reindeer sausage.

Saturdays are going to be very different up here.

Day 8 -- Watson Lake, Yukon, to Whitehorse, Yukon

2007-09-01T12:48:00.000-07:00

I spent my night in Watson Lake nursing myself back to full health, so when I hit the highway in the morning, I found it hard to keep myself in the car and away from the hiking trails.

It was a 4.5-hour drive that took me 8 hours, but it felt like 2. I guess that means I averaged about 6. I'm always too lazy for math.

Either way, I spent more time in places like this ...

... than places like this:

Of course, this brought a few adventures. While at Rancheria Falls, I saw some fresh bear tracks, so I quickly snapped the following picture and got the hell back to the Kia. That ended what I calculated to be a 50-minute romp aside the Lower Rancheria River.

There are places where the highway cuts into a hill, leaving a steep patch of dirt. It's customary for people to leave their mark with stone symbols, like this:

Naturally, I put my own twist on it.

Twice.

Whitehorse was a much-needed change from the highway outposts I had been staying in recently. It was my first "real" city since Regina, and it was nice to soak in a little culture after a full day alone on the road.

"Little" is the appropriate term. Below is the central government for the Yukon Territory. All three branches. And the Whitehorse library. There are stalls in the Bradenton City Hall's bathrooms that are bigger than this thing.

Whitehorse's best feature was its historical promenade by the Yukon River, where I sat and watched the water flow for a while.

Later, I ate some fresh Halibut at Klondike Rib & Salmon BBQ. Since there was little room, I shared a table with a physician from New Mexico named Jim. He warned me about the high levels of alcoholism among Native Americans in Fairbanks, something I got a taste of on the walk home.

A drunk Inuit approached me, claiming to be a tribal elder. He tried to take my hand so I could pray with him, but I dodged it with a pat on the shoulder and said my family would be worried if I didn't get back to the hotel.

Not ready to turn in, I found a seat at the hotel bar and shot the breeze with some of the wait staff. I ended up at a karaoke bar with a few of them later that night. We drank and traded stories until about 2 a.m.

You know you're in good company when you say "make a funny face!" and they make the same face as you.

So Canada bid me a fine farewell. I'll be back, and not just because there's nowhere else to drive.

By the way ...

2007-09-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Arrgh.