Fairbanks, Alaska

Fairbanks, with a population of 36,000, is the second largest city in Alaska. I don't know but I would bet that considerably less live here in the dead of winter. Temperatures in January average between zero and a minus sixteen. The natives talk about minus forty degrees and days where the sun never rises. Sounds like the perfect time to visit kinfolk in the lower forty-eight. Every parking lot has electrical outlets to plug in your engine block warmer and you don't even turn off your car while you're gassing up or the engine block will freeze. Fortunately we were there in September and the weather was beautiful. Like the Alaskans say, when it's above freezing it's tee shirt weather. For them it's tee shirt weather but I felt comfortable in shirt sleeves. We had coffee at the River City Café on the street side patio and enjoyed the sunshine.
There are lots of interesting things to do in Fairbanks and we needed to do the tourist things first. It's out to the El Dorado Gold Mine to see if we could make it as gold miners. I was too careful in my panning technique, not believing that yes the gold really does sink to the bottom of the pan. Between my sweetheart and myself we ended up with over forty dollars in gold. You would think that was a good haul but then you go to the gift shop and you simply must buy the sixty dollar locket to display your good fortune. Why do I do these things, I should be holding her hand.
Next it's on to the north pole, North Pole, Alaska. Where Santa lives year round is 22 miles from Fairbanks and has a McDonalds and traffic circles. The City of North Pole was incorporated on January 15, 1953. The major attraction is a giant statue of Santa and Santa's Workshop, where you can buy all things related to Santa Claus, I bought something but now I even forget was it.
We stayed at Pikes River Resort which was nice and an interesting feature you could leave a "Northern Lights Wakeup Call". Sure enough ours came at 3:00 am. At that time even I thought about rolling on and going back to sleep. My sweetheart would have none of that, so I in my pajamas and she in her cap, out on the balcony on a cold winter's night. And lo! The Aurora Borealis. The auroras, also known as northern lights are natural light displays in the sky, God's own night light.. The Alaskan natives call them the Dance of the Spirits, which I consider a much more romantic notion in keeping with their mystery. This night they hung in the night sky like a long extended shower curtain fading from white to light blue and floating from left to right. Mark that off the bucket list and back to bed. Tomorrow we tackle another item on the bucket list. The haul road north and the Arctic Circle.