Jack bought a new pick up truck! We picked it up in Amarillo, Texas and drove through Palo Duro Canyon State Park before heading on to New Mexico. Click on the first one and scroll to the right if you are interested!
Jack and his new truck!
Look at those huge ears on that jackrabbit!
An adorable prairie dog family (and could that be a burrowing owl in the background?).
Very different soils from what we are used to in Alaska.
Windmills and jack pumps everywhere!
Amazing dips and depressions in these brick roads, not all that different from what we deal with!
Well at least the top corner of it did on January 7th. It appears that snow fell on a majority of states in the continental US in January. These images are from the NASA Earth Observatory website – the one of the southwest was taken quite recently, January 28th.
Here are more photos of our late summer camping trip up the Steese Highway. Chilly, but hardly a cloud in the sky…
You’ll see Davidson Ditch, a water pipe built in 1920s, that runs 90 miles along the Steese Highway. It used to bring about 180,000 gallons of water per day to the gold dredges in Fox, Alaska from the Chatanika River.
(Click on the first one and scroll to the right.)
Sitting around our campfire, the northern lights decided to give us a show.
Jack, lovin’ life.
An ember from the fire timed itself perfect for our long shutter speed.
The Steese Highway, one of the less populated camping destinations.
There are several nice roadside memorials on Alaskan highways, but we both agree this is the best one we’ve seen.
It’s only late August, but that means fall up here, about 60 miles north of Fairbanks.
Even farther north at Twelvemile Summit Wayside (about 80 mile Steese).
Probably the best time to drive the Steese Highway, late summer.
State camp, Montana Creek Station (road maintenance station).
Lots of mining on the Steese Highway.
And lots of burnt forest.
Davidson Ditch snakes its way to Fox, Alaska (about 8 miles north of Fairbanks).
Davidson Ditch is practically in this house’s back yard.
Chatanika Lodge, a most important place to visit if you come to Alaska. Tons of interesting stuff in there. About 40 mile Steese Highway.
This is directly across from Chatanika Lodge, a very old mining site with a gold dredge (on the right) that used to float.
An amazing thing happened when I was on the road with Jack one time.
We woke up at what the truckers call 62 Mile, a good-sized pullout used by truckers and tourist buses and just anyone traveling the road. It was late September and the drive up north had been sunny and crispy cool. I could not have gotten luckier on a time to be on the Haul Road. Orange and yellow autumn colors abounded and even a pink birch tree showed up every so many miles. (Click to enlarge.)
No snow had fallen, but when we woke up that morning at 62 Mile the tundra outside was a winter wonderland. There were tourists milling about, gazing at the frosty grasses that surround the pull out.
And as you can see, there was a long line at the restroom, so I decided to take a walk out onto the tundra, and I’m so glad I did.
I discovered frost-covered fireweed, spider webs glinting in the morning light, and best of all, an absolutely stunning mist rainbow. I hadn’t known they even existed before, but now I have proof they do. As the frost was evaporating off the tundra, the water vapor in the air created a rainbow that shimmered in the sun’s light. As I stood watching, the sunlight slowly burned off the frost on the ground, leaving plants thawed on one side and still frozen on the other, and the glorious rainbow eventually faded away with the warmth of day.
A moment of astounding beauty. Luckily, I took a quick video and lots of photos, some of which may give an inkling of how amazing that morning was. If anyone ever tells you that the arctic tundra is a frozen wasteland with no redeeming qualities, here is proof that it is not true.
Flying into Fairbanks one day in 2008 the airplane took an unusual route. Instead of coming in from the southwest it came in from the southeast, flying over Harding Lake and Salcha and circling over Farmers Loop across north of town into the airport. Maybe this direction of landing is normal, I don’t know, I have never experienced it before, but this day happened to be beautifully clear and I captured some great photos of the Tanana River and various Fairbanks landmarks.
Click on the first one and then scroll to the right for an overhead, raven’s eye, tour of Fairbanks.
This is Hardling Lake with the Richardson Highway at the top of the photo (looking south).
Harding Lake with the Tanana River and Richardson Highway running in between.
This is the Salcha River flowing into the Tanana River, surrounded by the community of Salcha with the Richardson Highway running through it.
The Tanana River
The Tanana River
Now we are looking northwest toward Fairbanks with the Tanana River flowing westward.
A closer view of Fairbanks with Fairbanks International Airport in the upper left, above the Tanana River. The Parks Highway runs next to the airport from the northwest then turns east (Mitchell Expressway). You can see almost all of Fairbanks here including the hillside residential areas to the north and west. The bodies of water in between Fairbanks and the Tanana RIver are the gravel pits around Lakeview Terrace and farther away, the South Cushman ponds.
The intersection of the Richardson Highway and Badger Road is on the right. The road that parallels the Richardson on the left is called Saddle Avenue; we think this is the dike that protects Fairbanks from Tanana River flooding. Fort Wainwright is on the right.
The middle rectangle spans south Fairbanks from the airport to Fort Wainwright. The University of Alaska is in the upper right hand corner and below it is part of downtown.
Now we are on the other side of Fort Wainwright looking southwest. Bottom right is Birch Hill Recreation Area and downhill ski runs and Jack says the circular cleared area is the Fort Wainwright landfill. On the right side middle you can see Johansen Expressway with the big box stores along it, though it’s more developed now with large commercial buildings on both sides of the road instead of just one. The Chena River winds westward from Fort Wainwright.
We’re flying north of town now looking south toward Fairbanks with the intersection of Farmers Loop and the Steese Highway in the upper left corner and McGrath and Farmers Loop closer to the middle.
Someone’s personal junkyard, one of many in Fairbanks. Normally you can just see an edge but here you can see one in all its glory!
This interestingly shaped pond is either an oxbow lake, which is formed where a river or slough used to run, or a thawed area of permafrost.
This is north Fairbanks where the industrial area of Aurora Drive and the residential areas north of it meet. Carlile Transportation is kind of in the upper middle, just on this side of the Johansen Expressway. Danby intersects Johansen in the upper left corner and on the other side of the expressway is the railroad industrial area. There have been a lot of changes since these were taken 6-7 years ago.
We are farther west, looking southeast, with Johansen Expressway running horizontally. The large buildings in the upper left (not near the middle of the photo, that’s the Aurora Drive industrial area) are Randy Smith Middle School and the car dealerships of Danby Road. Next to the red roof in the foreground is the partially constructed foundation of the Carlile shop that now services Jack’s truck.
Here we see the Chena River meandering through Fairbanks and the intersection of Johansen and Peger Road on the left. The Carlson Center is the large green building in the upper left. One of the newest and most expensive neighborhoods of Fairbanks is Doyon Estates which is on the right, inside one of the the loops of the Chena River.
The intersection of Peger Road and Phillips Field Road is near the middle and here is where the railroad industrial area and the residential neighborhoods meet.
This is Riverview Drive running between the neighborhood pond and the Chena River, with an active gravel pit on the right bank of the Chena. This residential neighborhood is called Taku or Westgate. You can see the new intersection of Airport Way and Washington Drive in the upper right corner. The large building at the corner of that intersection has been shuttered since K-Mart closed, and next to it is Sears.
And finally, we land at the Fairbanks International Airport with the float ponds next to the runway.
Jack took these photos a couple of days ago. The clouds have a really weird consistency to them, like there are air pockets underneath that are pushing them up in patches.
It’s kind of hard to make it out but the clouds are indented from the bottom.
It almost looks like there are mountains in the distance but it’s all clouds.
The clouds look like a layer of memory foam being pressed on from below.
Jack finally took a video of driving down the road. It seems like a silly thing to do but people have requested more videos and this one shows what most of his job is like, on the good days. 🙂
(If these appear blurry change your resolution settings on the bottom right side of the player.)
But at least we have our memories. Such as from a few years ago on a sensationally sunny day in early September when Jack and I took a 4-wheeler ride in the mountains around Chena Hot Springs. That year there were striking fall colors and luckily I captured a few images to warm my heart on cold winter days. Hope you are all keeping warm.
This year Jack took me and the motor home out for a quick weekend hunt. (It was really camping, not hunting, although Jack would have taken a shot if he came across one in an accessible area.) We really wish we had been able to get out a little more over the summer!
There is always next year…
Jack, taking a look
Sport, taking a look
A Western Star truck driving the Dalton Highway with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline in the background. Jack knew who the driver was, of course.
Jack’s wife, Judy (me), and our dog Sport.
Any idea what these are?
Jack on a pipeline access road.
Finally the sun starts to come out!
And we get to see the pipeline in the evening sun.
The beautiful Dalton Highway road sign at 1 mile.
Jack taking a look at the big trucks, but he’s driving a motor home this time…
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