A temporary end to free food

Oh man, tomorrow I train my baker replacement, and in a week I'm out(!).  It seems I'm always wistful at departures and transitions; it's better to leave wishing you were staying longer than wanting to get the hell out, right?  -Although, I don't want to jinx my already-iffy car battery, so, southward ho!

The skiing has been great here, the trails ever more sparkly as the sun climbs higher over the ridges, and hints of spring quietly manifest.  It's still regularly -25F but the sun dogs and mountain valley fogs are evidence of change afoot.  You need to wear sunglasses again.

I'll be journeying down for a week in Denali, featuring a night or two of winter camping and skipacking.  Krista and I will see if drinking the pasta water is even more fortifying after gliding around on snow than hiking along glacial outwash, and we'll determine how many miles of dog sled trails equals three Snickers bars.

And then I go rather farther south, to Patagonia, to see the western penguins, and a tan bearded guy.

Valenfriends overnight at Koyuktivuk cabin

pretty mountains in the sun

Krista is standing downhill, though she is dainty

January Made Me Shiver

Whew, so many happenings!  I feel like Fairbanks Girls' Weekend 2022 deserves its own entire post, but then I'd never catch up.  So picture this: six women in a van with Arctic-level cabin fever descending upon "town" to unwind at the hot springs, gorge on sushi and exotic mixed drinks, gossip in a vacation rental, furiously compete at bowling and leg wrestling, win over the working girls at the strip club with our enthusiasm and tips, and relish it all the next morning over crepes and lattes.  One of my favorite parts was while searching for more beer after the strip club at 1am on a Wednesday, we got pulled over for having a headlight out.  The cop kindly sent us on our way when we pretended to have just got in after driving the rural highway from Coldfoot.

All this was a prelude to my actual vacation to see a certain cyclist in Portland.  It wasn't quite spring, but the sun shone for a while, the perennially green moss was joined by some green grass, and I welcomed the soft dampness in the air after three months spent in a frozen desert.  I was able to tend by hand a nascent bloom of indeterminate lifespan, water it, see a bit of development, and prepare to replant it in a warmer climate.  I'll meet up with said cyclist in Argentina in March.

In the meantime, there are a few more delightful weeks of skiing and reading and fun friends and free soup (and mopping and dishes) at our bizarrely magnetic truck stop.

In our DD's hatchback 

The sun is back!!! 

Jace and the Oregon mountains 

Noel Nouvelet

We've feasted our way through the holidays.  Goat curry, grilled lamb, peanut butter pie, prime rib, stewed hare, homegrown prosciutto, homemade ice cream, samosas, fruitcake (4lbs of dried fruit!), and surprise pomegranates from our fabled boss.  I finally met Brett, the kingpin of the arctic, benevolent and busy man.  There were other cooks happy to provide this onslaught of tastiness, so I just made dozens of naan breads and a few sweets.

Through the miracle of modern technology/a series of tubes, I got to join Pixley xmas and watch my nephew dole out presents to the family.  My niece, age 2 1/2, toddled around cutely and happily mashed the couch cushions.  And I got exactly what I hoped for: a book, chocolate, and socks.  And a few days earlier, I got the best toffee I've had from the best ukulele player I know.  

I worked a pretty easy night on Christmas, and was off to enjoy champagne and festivities for New Year's.  We meant to have a fire but it was about -40F, steam and exhaust suspended in the air, a small band of aurora was visible but fleeting.  The temperature has eased up a bit but the heater that keeps the walk-in fridge above freezing is on non-stop, and the pantry, with an outside wall, is so cold potatoes on the bottom shelf froze solid.

Looking south by the river.

Looking north above the dog lot.

Hot Dice, Cold Bets

I was assisted with my second major auto dig-out today, which was nice as the most recent snow dump was heavy.  Temps soared up to +32F, generating lots of powder, which was good for skiing but calamitous for tourists hoping to see the aurora.  The three questions I never want to hear again are: Do you have wifi? When will we see the aurora? Is the hot water free?

We do not have wifi.  You will see the aurora when it is good and goddamn ready to be seen, which is not when it is snowing.  And there is a sign directly above the hot water spigot that proclaims "HOT WATER - $2.95."

Maybe I'm just a little salty ending a seven-day workweek with hosting, after the actually-more-fun annual kitchen deep clean and awkwardly being filmed for Japanese TV.  Luckily my weekend aligned with the solstice, and we combined Silent Dance Party with Craps Night.  The backstory is, when covid first hit, things shut down and the coworkers here used the extra time to build a craps table and play a bunch so they could travel together to Vegas and win big when things reopened.  We brought out the table and I was given some vague and bewildering explanations; there was excited shouting and nickels and quarters won and lost all around.  And then the true kindred spirits pranced and spun and kicked and swam through the waist-deep snow, jamming out quietly under the stars to help pull the sun back in our direction.

After first accidentally throwing the dice in Derrick's face, I redeemed myself by rolling for over an hour.

Pretty colors the last clear day.

Delightful moody blue light.

Powder Blue

Krista came through with room breakfast and story time this weekend.  We had a floor picnic of eggs and bacon and hashbrowns and yogurt and fruit and giant pancake, then read aloud from classics and new literary delights, like "We Found a Hat" and "This Is Not My Hat."  It was lovely to stay inside and sit around in pajamas for hours.  Otherwise, I have been getting after it -- skiing every other day, re-breaking the trail after 18" of snow, miring in the woods where it's thigh-deep, farcically crashing through thin ice coating a huge culvert, even...rowing along to Ke$ha in the gym.

The days have narrowed to the extent that it's dusk when I wake up at 11:30am and nighttime at 4pm.  The beautiful blueish light of the muted half-tone landscape, the subtle pinkish-peach airbrushed hillsides when clouds part, and the snow's seeming luminescence meld into an alluring, mellow palette.  Soon we'll reach the nadir, and again the light will grow; but for a time we pause, becalmed in the quiet cold.

Other Claire mushing while Dan breaks ahead

Ptarmigan(?) tracks by the river  

Got the Honda free again.

The Sun's Gonna Shine Again

It's hard for me to remember things as a server such as who ordered Diet Coke because I don't give a shit.  I'm oddly fascinated by this lack of attention to detail as Editor Claire was formerly so invested in the proper employment of punctuation, page layout, and index development.  I'm trying to perfect my technique handling biscuit and potato roll dough, and I clean with adequate enthusiasm -- but my hosting/serving is mediocre at best.

There are many diverting things crowding my brain and reducing its interest in recording whose burger gets tomatoes on it.  The river steamed mythically for a few days as it iced over; the sun crept lower and disappeared below the horizon for the next two months; moonglow lit the trail for night skiing; a horde of dogs whipped our sled over the tundra; Cleo and I gossiped over a glass of wine in the ladies' bathroom; I transformed butter reserves into 500 cookies; and a bush plane carried off my favorite bike hobo.

No more polar bear plunge access.

See you somewhere soon, comrade!

Doggies pulling like beasts.

Wintopia

After a few flirtations with hypothermia last year, I committed to always taking extra layers skiing.  A couple days ago, we finally plunged down to proper winter temps; -1F isn't too bad for these parts, but somehow every ten minutes I went from toasty to chilled and back, resulting in a slow-motion fashion show, pulling on and peeling off to briefly parade assorted tops and gloves.  Today I achieved a dual-shirt equilibrium and was able to enjoy the view through unfrosted glasses the whole time.

Biking is a beast of a different kind.  We have a small fleet of fat-tires to grind through powder.  Churning over sand dune-like hills calls for, unfortunately, the opposite of the technique of standing for extra leverage on single-speed trash bikes that I've been honing over the last decade or two.  I'm learning to quell that instinct, downshift, and keep my butt in the seat for adequate traction.

A lot of tourists ask (incredulously) what draws us to live and work here, particularly when buffeted by wind on cold dark nights awaiting the aurora.  When I say there's good skiing, it's both an honest and deflective answer.  I'll flip your burgers and wash your plates but I won't try to explain what Thoreau so aptly wrote: "The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward!"

shared moose path

Krista pet all of Dan's dogs that day while I stayed just beyond chain's reach.