Dear Kids,
Finally! I have something exciting to write about…an adventure you will hopefully have memories of for years to come. We headed north the Last Frontier for about 3 weeks. I have a business trip to Kodiak at the end of the July, and Ima found someone in Fairbanks who was looking for someone to housesit, so here we are…headed to Fairbanks for 3 weeks. Read on for our adventures…
We arrived in Fairbanks this morning…early…about 12:30 am. You wouldn’t know it to look out the plane window…the sky was as bright as you’d expect it to be at around 6 pm on the East Coast. It was pretty amazing. Even with all that light, it took us a while to find the car, and then more time to find the house, but we finally arrived, and everyone got into bed and was asleep soon after.
I was up early and went for a short run in the neighborhood, but the roads around the house are all gravel, so it wasn’t much fun…that and the house is at the top of a tall hill, or perhaps it’s a small mountain. When everyone was finally up, we went for breakfast at The Cookie Jar. It was a cozy little place with mostly friendly staff. But it was packed, and service was slow. It took us almost a ½ hour to get our food. SBK and SBE shared a huge cinnamon roll. SBR got a cinnamon roll French toast. Ima got some kind of veggie scramble (I ate her mushrooms). I had reindeer sausage. It was tasty, but honestly, the leftovers I ate a few hours later was actually tastier for some reason. On our way out, we bought some cookies that were ½ price because they were day-old. I can’t imagine what they tasted like fresh because they were pretty darn good after a day sitting on the counter. Maybe they tasted better because they were ½ price?
From the restaurant, we headed to the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visitors Center. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that SBK loves museums and couldn’t get enough of the exhibit. It was pretty cool…they had all kinds of displays on native Alaskan art and life; they had a huge, multi-room diorama that was extremely impressive.
After going through the exhibit several times, Ima getting a mountain of brochures, and everyone exploring the gift shop (we were strong and bought nothing), we headed over to Moose Antler Arch and took some goofy pictures. Ima went for a run along the Chena river (which wanders aimlessly through town), and we hung out in the park and took pictures. At some point, it got hot, and everyone was still jet lagged, so…yep, you guessed it. A certain one of you had a bit of a meltdown. We headed back to the car and waited for Ima under a shady tree. When she finished her run, we got in the car, and you kids ate the leftover cinnamon roll and cookies. Tantrums were over, and we headed back to the house.
Before we got home, we saw a sign for a yard sale, so of course Ima wanted to stop and have a look. There was some nice stuff, but how would we get it back home? So, yea, obviously we didn’t buy anything. SBK and SBE stayed in the car, but SBR came to have look as well.
At the house, we got the grand tour of the place and the property. The lady who lives here gave us all the details and explained everything we needed to know to housesit—at this point in your life, I guess I can share that she told us where the pistol was and that she had put the pot in the back of the freezer. We assured her both would very much remain untouched! Then she took us on a walking tour of her property through the woods and around the neighborhood. After that we scuttled off to bed as we were all exhausted.
Tomorrow’s another day in the Last Frontier…stay tuned to the next installment.
Love,
Aba
