Bears!

We saw three brown bears from a bridge over Troublesome Creek between Willow and Cantwell, on the way to Fairbanks.

The photos were taken from the car, Kelly wanted me to get out, but I didn't want to be an episode in Faces of Death X. The big one started to amble up toward the car, sniffing, so we skedaddled. They seemed really hungry, and were doubtless fishing for Salmon, but I think it was a bit early yet.

It's 11PM and still broad daylight

Sophie's in the bedroom of our rented, tilting flat here in Fairbanks complaining that she can't get to sleep. I don't blame her, outside looks like time for a late lunch/early dinner. It's hard on the circadean rhythms I think. Fairbanks is as far North as we go. Up here, it just gets a bit dusky around 1:00 AM, this time of year.

I managed to find my Grandma's old house, where I spent a lot of childhood summers. From Fairbanks we start winding our way South back toward Anchorage, via Delta Junction, where I spent about 5 years of my childhood.

We landed in Anchorage, and caught up with my oldest school friend (5th Grade) Mike, and his wife Kirstin. We were both computer nerds in junior high school, and strangely enough - we still are. We stayed at Mike's parent's house, just next door, for about a week, as they were out of town. The kids were thrilled to have neighbours their age to play with.

The kids were dieing to see and touch snow for the first time. Luckily Mike and Kirstin new of some of the last remaining patches up in a mountain pass about an hour away. We all went up and the kids loved it, and managed their first snowball fight.

During our stint in the Anchorage area, we also managed to catch up with Truman, an old family friend. Truman owns a Halibut charter business in Whittier and he took us out for a great day of Halibut catching. We fried it up at Truman's place afterwords, but Sophia wouldn't eat it. In fact she was quite sick from seeing the halibut being fileted. Sage didn't eat other, and wanted to throw the fish back.

We have another two weeks in Alaska, and then it's on to a short stop in Vancouver. We're all getting a bit road-weary at this point. Lot's of statements of "After this, I'll never travel again." But I doubt it.

Oh yeah, I don't know why the flat is tilting, but it's kind of annoying. It is built on the third floor of a house, kind of like they just kept extending the house up, and I think they forgot to use a level. things roll down the floors, and doors slam shut.

Southwest is done

We've completed our mini-tour of the US Southwest - not much of a tour really, just a few towns in New Mexico and Arizona. We went back to Bisbee - the old mining town south of Tucson where we lived five years ago. It's still an artsy hippy community, maybe going a bit commercial. It's still not the place that I would choose to live - but an interesting place to visit. We took a mine tour deep into the mountain. It's a constant 47F (15.5C) inside the tunnels. Outside it's blazing hot.

The highlight for me (and the kids) would have to be mouse-cat-dog. There was a guy at the Bisbee markets who had trained a mouse to ride on a cat's back who in turn was riding on a dog's back. The moral of the story being that if these mortal enemies could get along - why can't we? He charged a dollar for a photo - so not totally altruistic motives.

After Bisbee - we spent some time with my Folks in Las Cruces, New Mexico - with a side trip up to the Gila cliff dwellings, near Silver City. We were able to leave Sophia and Sage with my parents and go off overnight for that. My feelings after this leg of the trip. Hot, dusty, pumped full of good heavy Mexican food. Ready for a bit of coolness. So - nice that we are off to Alaska!