Artic Circle

Aug 18,

I woke up dreaming that I was a character in Doctor Zhivago. That tells you something about the temperature – 44 this morning. It seems strange to read that Maine’s temperatures are soaring into the 90s. It was a good dream. Back in our Anchorage campground I made a dream catcher at a craft night they held. It’s working. I don’t have any bad dreams. Then, again, I rarely have bad dreams anyway.

Today we saw two moose while we were driving to Fairbanks. Steve said he guessed they didn’t know that they were supposed to be inside the national park. We saw them just twenty minutes from the park’s entrance.

Everyone is so nice. Steve was hurtling down the road when he spotted them. He pulled over, but by the time he stopped, we were a little distance from them. An Alaskan guy who was driving in front of us wheeled his car right around so he could go back to see them. He opened his car window and asked if we wanted a ride back with him to see the moose. Since a turn around was right ahead, we just turned around. We wound up talking with the guy. As we drove off, he waved and yelled, "Have a great trip!" Isn’t that nice? It is so great meeting such friendly people and seeing animals that you are not expecting to see.

By noon we made Fairbanks and then decided to drive up to the Arctic Circle. That is a long drive on both paved highway and dirt highway. If we had driven just 300 miles more, we would have made Prudhoe Bay! We had had enough driving for one day though.

We drove right along with the pipeline. Recently a wildfire ravaged that area so lots of trees were burned, but the fireweed has already grown.That comes back first after an Alaskan fire. The hills looked colorful with the red of the fireweed.