Chaos Leaves Town

I’m all moved back into the cabin, same one I lived in last winter. The people that had been here this passed summer never paid the rent and did some minor damage but everything is pretty much back in order now. I had to replace all the plastic inside storm windows they ripped out but I am nearly done with that. I now have quadruple paned windows (counting the plastic as panes) throughout the cabin. The jerks also broke a glass window. It was a two paned panel around 3′ by 4′ so it cost the owner $190 for a custom replacement but I’m not all that sympathetic about it since I told the owner repeatedly not to rent to the guy (and his girl friend-they have drug issues).

There is snow on the ground, the temps are running around 10°F every day and in the -15°F range at night. I was able to get a good seal around the front door with a new sill sweep and some caulking so it’s cold and wind resistant now. Hopefully, this will all do a good job of saving heating oil for me. I just found out a couple days ago that last winter I only used a portion of the 200 gallon tank. Moved in mid-Sept. ’07 and moved out in mid-May ’08. I think there was still around a quarter tank when I moved. I wasn’t sure until I called the oil company and found that I hadn’t been on the ‘keep filled’ program, and the owner told me that she had not grabbed a fuel bill off the door or anything. There was one time last winter that I’d checked the oil level and the next time I checked it, about a month later, seemed like there was more in the tank. So I thought I was on a keep filled schedule. Must have fooled myself. The owners are paying for the oil so I’m trying to keep my usage down as a courtesy. I’m very pleased that my conservation efforts last year resulted in using just 120 gallons or so. Should be even more efficient this year since I did a better job sealing up the place earlier in the season. Last year I reacted to the cold, this year I anticipated.

The campground is closed now and I’d hoped that I’d get a renter this year like last year but it didn’t happen this time. So my expenses will be a little higher, unless I can find a new renter. There’s some extra room here around the cabin so last year I rented out a space to a guy I knew from the campground. All he needed was electric to keep warm and he bundled up. Stayed here all winter in a little Airstream type trailer. I earned around $80 per month from him over the electric expenses so I liked the deal. Best of all he hardly bothered me. Kept to himself, seldom knocked on my door and never asked to use the bathroom. I think he use to go over to the nearby bar and use their facilities. Oh, well, he is gone now and no one to replace him as a renter, so far. Perhaps I’ll put an ad in the paper.

Well, back to Jackie’s visit in August. We went out to Chena Hot Springs…around 60 miles East of Fairbanks. The paved road ends right at the springs. It’s fairly built up now after a hundred years of tourists trekking out there, first by horse and on foot, then by horse drawn wagon, then by car and bus, now by car, bus and aircraft. We didn’t see any moose on the trip up there or on the way back. The road goes through marsh country, just the place for moose but I guess they were wandering farther afield when we came by.

Jackie at Hot Springs, getting a wiff of the sulfur.

Here's what she's looking at...

After wandering around for a half hour, we found that the Ice Museum tour was just getting started so we bought our tickets, including an appletini drink, and entered the museum. Thankfully, they provided heavy coats so we weren’t to cold during the tour…

The ice chess set...

Random Ice...

A prize winner from the International Ice Carving competition...

She's kinda cool...

Another shot of the knights...

The bar...

Our bartender...

An ice xmas tree...

Here's one of the rental rooms. They have rented them out in the past but no one has been able to spend the entire night...

The toilet, never used of course...

Another bedroom...

And another...

This is inside a little igloo inside the museum...

Another shot of my best gal...

After our tour of the Ice Museum (I have no idea why they call it a museum, looks like a display to me…) we wandered over to the resturant and had a snack.

The bar...

A shot of the airport used in the dead of winter...

After we got back to Fairbanks, I took Jackie to the local bird watching spot. This area is now protected so the birds can rest and recouperate in peace before their long trip south.

Lots of birds resting on the way south.

More birds!

Well, this is enough for today, I’ll put up more when I get more time. B-t-w, thanks to my readers for hanging in there and coming back repeatedly to visit my not-to-often-updated blog. It’s especially difficult right now as I’m having trouble getting my webmistress to find some time to fix all the 600 broken links I’ve got after she upgraded my site. Soon I hope! Hang in there!

The first morning Jackie was here, we wandered over to Pioneer Park, which is around 600 yards from the campground, walking distance.

Lots of flowers in Fairbanks...

The grounded paddle wheel boat...

The paddle wheel is pretty cool, they built the canal, flooded it, floated the boat here, blocked the canal, and drained it. The boat worked out of Fairbanks for nearly a hundred years, most of those years owned by the federal government…because the government didn’t care that they lost, or made very little money for most of those years. The yearly balance sheets are in the boats museum on board.

Diarama's in the boat...

Later we toured one of the old cabins, this one is unique in that it had a second floor. This is the upstairs bedroom.

Jackie walking past old Fairbanks...

The Indian museum and totem pole...

Then the train came by, this is the original train that carted gold bullion around...More train...

Then we visited the aircraft museum. As you might imagine, all these planes have an Alaskan heritage...

A helicopter from the Viet Nam era...

A famous plane of some kind...

And another...

And another...they're kind of cool when you can read their history.

Continuing on, the next morning Jackie and I went out to Chena Hot Springs. If you don’t remember the last visit I made with my brother last year, it’s a natural hot spring that was discovered in 1908 by a couple of Swedish miners looking for gold. The US survey team had spotted steam coming from the area a few years before and noted it in their writings. The brothers actually found it and developed it for tourists. Go here to see what I mean: http://www.chenahotsprings.com.

We wandered around for a hour and then signed up for the ‘Ice Museum’ tour with Appletini’s, a yummy girly drink in a martini glass made of ice, while sitting at the ice bar, gazing at the ice fireplace and ice chandlier. I’ll show you some pictures soon.

The big day arrived and my friend Jackie flew into town, arriving at 1:30 AM. I get to the airport at 1:40 AM to pick her up and she’s a little loopy. She’s afraid of flying so you can’t blame her. She had a great story of how the stewards had tried to cut her off or get her to stop having fun and be quiet but she blew them off.

So we head off to one of my regular bars and have a couple. Ran into John, the Postdoctoral Fellow of the Geophysical Institute and Arctic Region Supercomputing Center at University of Alaka at Fairbanks, and had a nice talk with him. He’s the guy that when I first met him, I got all excited to talk to him about high energy physics and he mistook that as a gay come on. Damn, it’s gotten so bad in this country that you can’t even be interested in science without being accused of some sinister motive. Thanks to the religious right (cults, all of them).

Jackie was soundly drunk by this time and it was funny listening to her try to talk intelligently about anything. Cute & silly. Anyway, we spend an hour there, dodged around a fight going on in the bar, then head back to my RV while I assure her that she had all her luggage…twice.

She took over my bedroom and I got the sofa. Both beds are comfortable so neither of us complained. Next morning, I take her over to my office and show her around. Then we hike over to Pioneer Park and spend a couple hours going to museums and shops.

Some of the 10's of thousands of dollars worth of gold objects at the museum.

Amazing baskets.

A photo of a giant photo of a Hubble Space Telescope photo. The pinwheel galaxy.

Another Hubble photo...The Horsehead Nebula.

Some native carved artwork.

One of the several diaramas.

Interesting sculpture.

That’s our visit to the big ass museum here in Fairbanks. More later.

I went down to the Big I last night and sat at the bar in back with the new, cute, blond, nice rack, bartender. She doesn’t mind talking to me so we spent a couple-three hours getting to know each other. No band last night & no big games on so it was relatively quiet.  Around 1:30AM or so a couple wanders in and sits down close to me, I glance at the guy, get that feeling that comes over me less often then it use to and blurt out, “You look like a football coach to me”. He asks my why I think that, I explain my feelings about it, he laughs and tells me he’s Knute Rockne’s great grandson.  Nailed it. And WOW, interesting guy.

Knute Rockne's Great Grandson...

Anyway we talk about college football awhile, and he shows me his ID, and yes, his name is also Knute Rockne. Meanwhile I explain to the kids near by who Rockne was. His friend had wandered away and I asked how well he did with the ladies with that famous name? He tells me that he’s only slept with 4 women (volunteered the info, I didn’t ask directly) even with the name. Well, we have a good time talking and eventually he asks how I could have possibly guessed his background and I tell him I’m just naturally perceptive. He tells me his friend, who has returned, is too and she proceeds to guess what my sign is. She misses it repeatedly even though I’m helping her narrow it down. A tad bit drunk she was and perceptive she isn’t. Anyway, a few minutes later and she’s pissed at me for no other reason then I showed her up as NOT being perceptive. She moves over right next to me and starts trying to berate me while inventing something to be mad at me for. I quickly talk circles around her and her bogus arguments and with a touch here and a kiss there soon she’s melted a little and I’m holding her hand and she’s kissing me and I see Knute laughing at us and our sillyness. I gave her a last kiss or two and she finally gives up hating me and moves back to Knute. She’s very pretty and he’s a lucky man to have her as a friend except she’s a little wacko, in a fun way. I ran into him again a couple nights ago and he tells me she isn’t his wife like I thought but a friend.

Hmm, just getting interesting.

The weather was kinda coolish with threatened rain, but I sucked it up and headed up to the fairgrounds here in Fairbanks to visit the local farm fair. As I walked up to the ticket booth, I decided to swallow my pride and ask about senior discount. I’m not 65 yet so I didn’t know what the fair staff considered senior. To my surprise the ticket taker just waved me in. I didn’t quite hear him so asked him, ‘how much?’, and he said ‘Nothing’. Not wanting to argue, I got my hand stamp and headed into the fair. So instead of the $8 usually charged seniors, or $12 for youngsters like me, it was free.

First thing I noticed inside was a rock & roll concert by some band who’s name you would recognize but I can’t remember now. Since they sucked, I didn’t hang around there. Then I passed a HUGE sling shot ride. I’ve been on smaller slingers but this one looked like it would shot you 60-70 feet into the air, if not further. Guess the technology is getting better and better.

The bungee throw...or a People Sling.

Walking around the fair...

Hey, there's some fun over there!

Some prize winning artwork.

Ink and oil...

A couple winners...

A few more winners. Now that I think about it, seems everyone was a winner. Nah, not really.

A spectacular hand drawn eagle, pen & ink...

Another winner! What are the odds?

Pen & ink...

A cool one-person helicopter for sale there at the fair...

Just people...

Now there's a ride. Just what I want to do...twirl around in a big contraption until I puke!

Frying Bob's

Then I wandered into the stinky barns and visited with the prize chickens and geese and cows and pigs and all. These folks left the doors closed too long so the barns were nice and warm, but stinky’er then I’d like. Anyway, a good time was had by me, and after a not-so-good raindeer burger for dinner and some shopping, I headed home. Just a note, I was looking for something for Jackie, my friend that was coming up in a week to visit and I wandered into a tent where the owners were both artists and live 15 miles north of the Arctic circle. I thought that was cool so looked at some of her bead work. I settled on a beaded wolf barrette. The price was $60 and I thought that was high, but she said it took her 10 hours to make so I didn’t object to much. And she threw in a pair of hand made earrings free. Later on, I found much nicer beadwork on the paddle wheel trip Jackie and I took which only cost $28 so yes, I got ripped. Damn. But it’s the thought that counts I suppose.

In which we enjoy Third Eye Blind in concert!

Stacy had a couple tickets to the 3EB concert yesterday and invited me to go along with her. No problem with that except I was her 2nd choice of escort. The venue was at a bar with a large chunk of land around it. They had a fenced off ‘dry’ area and a ‘wet’ area so kids could come to the concert.

As we left our car, there were two guys standing on either side of one of the parking lot entrance roads holding large signs. As I passed them I called out, “Hey, guys, what’s up with the signs”? They whipped them around and they were these large Jesus freak signs. So the guys yell at me to take a brochure, to which I replied, “I’m not into medieval myths guys, don’t you realize it’s the 21st century?”. That made them more aggressive and they keep yelling at me and trying to get me to take a damn brochure…which I repeatedly refused. There were around 10-12 of those guys running around bothering people. To bad they are so misguided.

As we entered, EVERYONE was frisked. Couldn’t sneak in a damn thing even if we’d wanted to.

Anyway, I got several phone pictures, it’s like you’re there yourself! Enjoy.

Here’s Stacy all settled in and looking cute:

This shot is of the ‘dry’ area. Just showing you how many people were there:

The stage is over there under that half-pipe:

That’s the name of the venue there on that building…thought I’d give them some exposure:

More of those people on the hill:

See that white building/truck over there, that’s where the beer is…I’m in line, each time we got a beer it took 30 minutes of standing in line:

See that blond? While I was glancing her way, this guy, looked military & 20-25, came up behind her and grabbed her butt. I figured it was a friend or something based on her reaction so no big deal…but then this other guy about the same age came by, spotted her, came up behind, and slid a plastic zip tie into her crotch then pulled it back. Now that was different. She spins around, sees who it is and they talk amicably awhile. I figured that she might be an exotic dancer with that sort of stuff going on with her. Not the kind of familiarity you normally see at a concert or anywhere in public for that matter. Not that I’m a prude or anything, it’s just that I spent so damn much time in line that I got bored so I noticed the goings on with her. She wasn’t bad to look at either:

Here’s a couple close shots of the band:

After the concert was over, Stacy and I went on down to the Big I and got soundly drunk…danced up a storm and staggered home around 3AM (I had sobered up and was doing quite well, so I drove).

The band at the Big I, they played every song Stacy and I requested:

The snow has all melted and the days are much warmer here in Fairbanks but we’re still getting down to the mid forties at night occasionally…usually it’s in the 50’s. But I’m still wearing a long sleeve shirt most of the day. Around noon it’s warm enough to take it off but then a cloud rolls by and back on it goes. I’m enjoying this because if you remember, I don’t care for the heat. You get up to 80°F and I’m looking for AC. Last week we had hail! Can you believe it people? Especially you folks down in Las Vegas – where it’s 85°F right now, soon to be 115°F. Don’t envy you people.

A few days ago we had a big ass moose wander through the park, I didn’t have my camera so I couldn’t get any shots…Stacy got a couple with her camera phone but they didn’t turn out well enough to put up on the web. One of these days…

We’ve been working at getting the park spruced up, like putting new campsite number signs up, cleaning up the scrub brush, got the water turned on, started installing 30A outlets for big rigs, fixed a few things, & started the garden. With the high price of vegi’s here and the short growing season, a garden is a must. Actually, we’re a couple weeks behind.

I have moved my RV over here to the park and it is giving me a new problem, if you have been reading my blog, you’ll remember that I had trouble getting winterized on time last winter, so I wasn’t sure I had all the water out of the plumbing system before I buttoned it all up. That means I needed to worry about a busted pipe spraying water all over when I charged it up this spring. While I haven’t found any broken or leaking pipes so far, for some reason, when I turn on the water pump (there is no park water at my site so I use the on-board pump), it keeps running instead of coming up to pressure and stopping. If there is a water leak, I can’t find it. Perhaps it’s sucking air from somewhere…but where?

I found the problem…there is a pump bypass that I had opened last winter, once I closed that, my system is working fine with no leaks! Yeah!

If you remember, I’ve been living in a cabin a couple miles from Ice Park. Sometime in the next week I’ll be moving back to that campground while someone else gets to live in the cabin for a few months. I’ve been slowly, really slowly, moving my stuff back into the RV. If I could get a day off from getting the campground ready for the season, I’d be done by now. Anyway, soon.

Today I struck a blow for those that hate junk mail. One of the worst offenders on earth is Good Sam club…started by that Walton guy (Walmart) years ago. For every one piece of junk mail I get, I get 3 from them. Even on stuff I CAN’T BUY from them and they know it! Idiots! They have several programs going so I get insurance pitches for the car, another for the RV, Emergency Road service pitch, their magazine, etc., etc. They never stop. I’ve even sent them a bogus address change…they checked and found it didn’t exist so didn’t stop sending junk mail. Talking to them on the phone does no good, nothing does.

So, today, I gathered all their junk mail, opened it, crossed out anything that required my signature with a big NO! written over the top, stuffed all their junk mail material back into the free to me envelopes until they were all bulging, and mailed it all back to them. Let’s see how they like getting junk mail. Their costs will be $2 or so per envelope, I hope. The only way they will stop is if it’s costing them money. Yes, I am aware of that junk mail stopping service but that takes a year…

Meanwhile, back at the campground, we’ve been getting ready to officially open today (May 15th), so we’ve gotten the water turned back on, the trash dumped, the junk picked up, yard work done, etc. We’ve made a bit of money so far and have several month to month guests. One gal came on April 14th in her truck camper. There was still a foot of snow on the ground.

There’s still a lot to be done, we want to add several 30A outlets for RV’s this year and that will take a while, then we could add water to one of the rows. And we don’t even have the space signs up yet.

Weekend before last, I headed downtown around 6:30pm with the foolish thought that I could get into the theater and see Shakespeare’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’. Wandered up to the theater about 40 minutes early to find they are sold out. Waited around for 30 minutes to see if anyone would bail, when nobody did, I bought a ticket for the Sunday matinée. Oh, well, gave me some time to hang around the bar and have a couple nice beers and conversation with a drunk girl.

So Sunday rolls around and I head over to the theater around 1:30. Glad I got there early because they were sold out again so it was going to be crowded, and I scored a nice aisle seat about three rows back from the stage floor. It’s a small theater and costs $18 a ticket. Cheap enough. I hoped it might be good enough to make a couple hours whiz by in Fairbanks instead of dragging by.

They took an extra 30 minutes to let all the ticket holders show up so when the house lights finally went down, I was overheated from all the body heat in the place and getting a little antsy. But, this was Shakespeare, worth the wait, and an excellent ensemble at that. In this small town, (36,000 in the winter), it’s a surprise that they have this much talent. Puck was well done (Oh, what fools these mortals be!), Bottom did an excellent job as the half man half donkey love interest of Fairie queen Titania who falls in love with him thanks to a trick of Oberon’s…in this case played by an actor with the costume and hair of a ’70s Big Hair band.

Then there were what seemed like hundreds of fairies prancing around all the time causing trouble for the main characters.

All in all, the 2 & 1/2 hours whizzed by. Well worth it.

Here are some pictures of the cast at the end of the play. They won’t mean much to you, but they will help me remember it years from now: