When we arrived Tuesday night/Wednesday morning it was negative 45 degrees outside! We took a few pictures next to this bank's temperature marqee throughout the week. This particular picture was taken on the way home from the gym Thursday morning. Jacob was a bit insane to be out in such temperatures wearing only his gym shorts and short sleeves. Even I was almost frozen solid with my workout pants and long-sleeved t-shirt! (You can also see the dense ice fog in this photo--it's eerie and almost eliminates visibility altogether.)
Another highlight of our trip was watching the beginning of the Yukon Quest Sled Dog Race Saturday morning. It's not as big as the Iditarod, but it's a big deal in Fairbanks. (We even got to see the winner of the last Iditarod take off!) The dogs are magnificent, and we were amazed that they make it 1000 miles in these extreme temperatures! We were only out for about 30 minutes, but already our hair and eyelashes were freezing over. It's easy to see how that happens to the dogs and the mushers.
We took some great pictures of the mushers, and Jacob shot this video from the car when we came across a mushing team later that day on our way to the next adventure.
We couldn't believe we were doing it, but Saturday evening we drove up to the Chena Hot Springs, where we actually donned swimwear, walked out 20 yards in negative 20-degree weather (in only swimwear!) to the hot springs, and had an amazing time in the water! Even after we saw people come from the hot springs into the pool house with literal icicles hanging from their faces and hair, we still participated and had icicles of our own! The four of us had a wonderful time! The water was great (at 110 degrees), and when the moisture from the steam caused our hair and eyelashes to turn frosty, we tried to snap some photos. But the steam made picture-taking difficult.
On our way up to the hot springs, we searched for moose, and we saw 4; they are so big and gorgeous! The first one we saw was a cow, and we also saw a bull and a few other cows before the journey was over. (I wanted to call them does and bucks because I thought it sounded a little more euphemistic, but my parents corrected me.) Here's a cow we saw. She seems to see us too.
Later that night we went aurora-searching. We figured we couldn't come to Alaska in the winter without seeing the aurora borealis. We parked at the top of a ridge and waited past midnight but saw nothing. It wasn't until we started driving home that we began to see them. It was so fascinating to see a green light originating in the sky and undulating across in unexpected patterns--extraordinary! They were a little faint, but at least we can say we saw them, and they were really cool!
The best part of the trip was the time we got to spend with the Terrys; it was wonderful! That's all the narration I have, but here are some additional pictures from our trip.
The raw fur store
The Santa Claus House in North Pole, Alaska
Some beautiful ice sculptures (They actually cut blocks of ice from the river to make these; they're amazing!)
Some crazy folks...
More from the hot springs (including someone we met there--Sandi)
And another picture of the dogs (including one that seemed to notice Jacob taking its picture)
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