Friday, January 19, 2007

Making the most of six hours of sunlight

I posted this on the Michigan Daily blog. I will enhance this to make it more Hearyoni (as an adjective), but it should suffice for now.

We awoke this morning at the crack of dawn (about 9:30 AKST). With just six hours of daylight to work with, we didn't want to squander a minute of it.

Having not quite adjusted to the new time zone, we all had a craving for lunch before venturing to the University of Alaska campus and Museum of the North (and the outside chance of mushing). We walked a few blocks from our hotel to the heart of downtown Fairbanks and found lunch at a charming restaurant across the street from the eskimo statue featured in last night's post.

It gave us our first opportunity to see the Fairbanks "metropolis." We passed by two ammunition stores and five antique stores in the six-block walk to the restuarant. We ate at The Fudge Pot (soups, sandwiches, and midday Seinfeld for everybody). We all left The Fudge Pot satisfied and excited about a trip to the University of Alaska's Museum of the North and campus.

We hoppede on a shuttle up to campus, which is about 15 minutes away from downtown. The museum is situatied on the top of a hill in an interestingly shaped building. The museum traces the history of Alaska from the days of wooly mammoths through the pipeline.

Now, I don't want to bore you with too much information. So, I will highlight a few of the intersting facts we learned:

• Alaska became the 49th state in 1959 by a Senate vote of 64-20. The official 49-star flag is on display in the Alaska State Museum.
• There is a movement among some Alaskans to build a bridge from across the Bering Strait from Alaska to Russia (similar to the land bridge that once existed, but without the land)
• During World War II, the western Alaska settlement of Dutch Harbor was evacuated.
• A 1967 flood wreaked havoc on the city of Fairbanks and caused $200 million in damage.
• The 800-mile long oil pipeline from the North Slope to Valdez cost $8 billion and is the second largest privately funded project.
• On average, the Aurora Borealis is visible 243 days a year in Fairbanks (hopefully, we are here for one of those)
• The shortest day on the Fairbanks calendar is just 3 hours and 42 minutes long. The longest day is nearly 21 hours long.

After the museum, we toured the campus. It's a nice campus for a university just 60 miles from the Arctic Circle. At its core, the buildings are close together, and an effective bus system serves the outlying buildings.

We have now returned to the hotel and are preparing to leave for the Michigan-Alaska hockey game at the Carlson Center. It starts at 11:05 EST and can be seen on ESPNU.

Day One in Fairbanks

You know it's a different climate when the airport shuttle driver refers to temperatures of 30 below as normal. He went as far to say that he doesn't consider it cold until the mercury drops 40 below.

The day started with a 6:00 a.m. EST wake up in Ann Arbor. Now, it is 8:30 p.m. AST, and I am sitting on the bed in my hotel room in Fairbanks (no, not Fairbanks, Indiana or Louisiana).

Overall, it was an uneventful travel day. The lone negative was my seating location, but even that wasn't horrible. I had a middle seat for eight hours of flight time.

At the Charles Lindbergh Terminal, I was forced to compromise on one of my meal-eating tenets. I tried to order a tuna sub at the airport's Quizno's (their subs are good because their are toasty, they also have a pepper bar), but the woman at the counter said that they didn't serve tuna. Given my location in line, the selection the restaurant offered, and the amount off time I had before my connecting flight, I ordered a veggie sub (gasp). What kind of sub shop doesn't offer tuna?

I slept on my first flight (Detroit to Minneapolis). On the second flight, I sat in between a guy who just returned from a tour of duty in Iraq and 27-year old Minnesotan, who is returning to Alaska after spending the last two months with her ill mother. We were a pretty chatty group. We probably talked (or shmoozed) for the first hour and a half of the flight before I decided that I needed to get some work done on my computer. Popular topics of conversation:

  • Fishing
  • Alaska
  • Minnesota
  • Michigan
  • Arkansas
  • Drinking
  • Cars

Awkward moment from the flight:

While sleeping on the second flight, I suddenly noticed that my chair was falling from behind me. I awoke to realize that the people sitting around me reclined my chair and provided me with a pillow. It turns out that I was leaning back and forth while sleeping (shuckling), and they did it so that I wouldn't have a stiff neck in the morning. Nonetheless, it was a little awkward.

We got off the plane in Fairbanks and hopped on the hotel shuttle that was conveniently waiting for us. Instead of salting the roads to remove the ice, they put gravel on the roads. I don't know the exact reason, but I can speculate that it has to do with the temperature, the environmental impact of salting roads, and the cost.

For dinner, Nate and I went to the restaurant that was named the region's best Italian and Mediterranean restaurant. It was pretty good. One of the items on the menu was called the "mother of all lasagnas." Unfortunately for my taste buds, this iteam contained sausage that prevented me from eating it. I settled for an eggplant parmasean, which ended up being a massive portion.

After eating, we explored a little bit of downtown Fairbanks, but neither of us were dressed to go on any intense adventures in town. We weren't wearing long underwear, and I didn't have my boots on.

We came across this eskimo statue in the center of town. Little did we know, but this photo was taken by a member of one of Fairbanks most prominent families, or at least a member whose name is on a plaque in this park in the middle of town.

Across the street from the park is the regional court house. Although there are just 70 Jewish families in Fairbanks, we know that they are making an impact on life in the city.

If you can't read this, it says "Rabinowitz Courthouse."

After our tour of the town, we returned to the hotel. A couple of hours later, Amber, another member of the hockey beat, arrived.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

And we're back

After a few months hiatus, I have decided to revive the blog in preparation for my trip to Alaska next weekend. I don't have much time blog now, but I wanted to give my loyal readers the heads up.

For those that are unaware (maybe becuase all you know about me you read on this blog), I will be traveling to Alaska on Thursday to cover the Michigan hockey team's game against the University of Alaska.

Now, I would be lying to you if I told you that this was strictly a business trip. How many times do you have a good reason to go to Alaska?

So there are a few things that I plan doing in my time near the Artic Circle.

  • Sticking a cup of water outside and seeing how long it takes to freeze
  • Aurora Borealis (At this time of year? At this time of day? In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your kitchen?)
  • Visiting the lone synagogue in Fairbanks, Or HaZafon, the northern-most congregation in the world
  • Mushing
  • Eating lots of salmon

If you read my blog over the summer, you know how proud I am of my sandal tan, and you might've thought that I would maintain this blog if only to provide updates on the status of the sandal tan. Well, I have fallen behind in the tan progress reports.

However, I will do a before and after series on the tan. It is now the middle of January and my foot has been shielded from the sun's rays for a few months by now, but you would never think that by looking at my tan. The only question is how the Northern Lights enhance Chaco tan. We'll have to find out.