A horse of a different color

Having been effectively abandoned by the travel Gods in Fairbanks I went back to basics. I've stated this before but I need to go back to it:

When you lose a loved one who means everything to you, you hope upon hope that you will see signs to let you know that you are still together, if not physically then at least in ethereal ways. It is often described in religious terms, then quickly dismissed by non-believers. Surely, the realist will explain, these "signs" are mere coincidence. That song would have played at exactly that time on the radio, even if you hadn't been tuned in. The beam of light would have shined through the prismatic keyhole in the front door and perfectly illuminated your loved ones face in a photo on the counter. A feather would appear out of nowhere when you were reminiscing with friends about a shared experience from years ago. 

I know that Betty would have loved this Alaska trip. In much the same way we had frequently talked about visiting Glacier National Park we had spoken often of exploring the wonders of our 49th state, one that neither of us had gone to. I had thought about spending an extra day or so in Fairbanks and taking a special tour. My breakfast friends the day before talked of a riverboat cruise they had taken in Fairbanks. I had thought about flying to the Arctic Circle or Prudhoe Bay "while I was in the neighborhood" after having discarded the idea of riding there either on rented motorcycle or in rented car. 

I would describe Betty as a practical adventurist. She loved to explore, but wanted to keep risk to a minimum. She would have thoroughly enjoyed the freedom of riding a motorcycle down a beautiful mountain road, but never would have allowed herself to throw a leg over the seat because of the perceived dangers. That's why I put her picture on the fender. Though separated we still travel together with her responsibilities switching to the intangibles. Making an empty seat appear on a high season, weekend bus tour at Glacier; allowing me to ride the first 5,000 miles of my P48 trip before getting me rained on the first time. So maybe the mechanical failure was her way of saying "slow down, there is plenty to do in the Alaskan interior".

I checked into flying to the Arctic Circle and back, but there were no seats available yesterday. But there was an opening on a tour bus that would drive to the Arctic Circle and back in one very long day. If my bike had been utile I never would have considered this option. When I found out the flight was booked up I would have written the idea off, moved on to the next item on the agenda. But with a day or two or three being the direct result of my current predicament I jumped on it. With the probable exception of Betty's sister Nancy, I don't know of anyone that has gone to the Arctic Circle. (Oops, my brother did when he was in the Army)

The trip boarded at 6 a.m. and did not return to HQ until 11:30 p.m! That's a long trip! I jumped on it and made the reservation Saturday evening, then sat down to pen my daily blog. That took until midnight and my alarm was set for 5:15! Then when the blog was pretty much done I hit save, not knowing I had lost what appeared to be a solid WiFi signal. Instead of saving, the document went into an endless and irreversible loop, one that would eventually lead to losing all my hard work. With the next day being an 18 hour outing I knew I would then be two days behind. A bargain at twice the cost!

When the alarm went off Sunday morning I rolled over and discovered that my phone, which had spent the brief night on charge, was less than 40% charged as a result of a worn out electrical outlet that did not hold the charger firmly enough, allowing it to fall part way back out of the receptacle and not charge the phone! Plan B was take the much larger, more cumbersome, lower quality, harder to use IPad to snap pictures.

The tour was great. I took too many pictures, as usual, learned a lot from our tour guide Suzanne and met some very nice people. Our conveyance was a 24 passenger touring coach, something that really surprised me given the horror stories I'd heard about the quality of the Dalton Highway.

You see the brilliant sunshine on this dirty bus? This picture was taken upon our return, at 11:30 p.m.!

The tour was unique in two ways, the combination of which may never have occurred in the history of Arctic Circle touring.

The tour took us first out of Fairbanks, north on the Steese highway to Fox, where we lost cell coverage, then another 73 miles on the Elliot highway before we ventured onto the Dalton highway (called the Hill highway before the pipeline was built in the early '70s). 

I never realized before, but the Alaska Pipeline is only four feet in diameter

Each support is numbered for identification purposes. The number is the distance, in feet, from Prudhoe Bay.

The Dalton highway is notoriously bad, being paved intermittently, under repair constantly and infrequently maintained. We were told it was featured on seasons 3 & 4 of Ice Road Truckers.

We travelled "only" 142 miles on the Dalton, past Joy, Ak.

* see explanation below

 over the Yukon River, to the Arctic Circle at latitude 66.33'. But way back somewhere near milepost 30 on the Dalton Highway was where I, and six of my fellow travelers had a very uniquely Alaskan experience.

The bus was going quite slowly to begin with, but we soon noticed Suzanne was stopping. A glance out of the front window revealed a pickup sitting in the road directly ahead of us and on the other side of the road was a dead moose. Because help and maintenance are usually a long ways off the standard procedure is to help each other. They had already used a sat-phone to report the incident and call for a tow (the right front corner of the young man's truck had been pushed back into the tire and rendered the vehicle inoperative). The moose paid the ultimate price, lying on his side, only recently relinquishing her final breath. A couple pair of gloves appeared and I volunteered to try to handle the head while the others wrested the remaining weight off to the embankment, clearing the road. I could not pick up the head, it was so heavy, so we slid the poor thing. A video of the event was sent to me via text (low resolution) and another person took a couple of still shots of the work party's efforts. Those will eventually be forwarded to me so I can include them with this narrative, if my e-mail address doesn't go AWOL before the folks eventually make it home sometime next month.

I did get three souvenirs during the trip. A river rock from the Yukon River, an Arctic Circle magnet (but not the milk shake) and a small clump of hair from the moose. A little gross, but such a unique experience that it had to be documented.

That was the first unique thing about the trip. After we did the ceremonial step across the Arctic circle boundary and took several pictures we headed back.

The Yukon River

66 degrees 33 minutes latitude - The Arctic Circle - check

On the way back I saw what to me was a clear sign that Betty was very pleased with this experience. We saw a rainbow. Not unique in and of itself, but this rainbow was unlike any I, or anyone else on the bus, had ever seen. And rainbows were always special to Betty and me, dating back to when a young, financially struggling couple with a bunch of kids took a very rare vacation alone and, while on an airplane at cruising altitude, we saw a rainbow below us that went in a complete 360 degree circle. It blew us away with its beauty and we marveled over the experience for years.

This rainbow was just as unique, just as uncommon. Against a very dark background the arc of the rainbow shown brilliantly, not just from skyline to skyline but down into the trees in the valleys on each side of the bus. As we drove this rainbow was visible for, I estimate, over a half hour, with various brightness against numerous backgrounds. Suzanne even stopped the bus for pictures, not once but twice. And that was just the beginning!

As the combination of dark backdrop and bright sunshine varied so did the light show, at times fading almost to obscurity but at other times developing into a completely different display. We often could see the usual red, orange, yellow, green, violet bands arching across the entire sky, but periodically we could see a second band of colors. Oh, you've seen a double rainbow before? So have I, but this was not two arches. It was a double set of bands in the same arch. (I was not able to get a picture of the double bands) Then, to add to that aura, was a second arch, at times complete in its own. (Shown above)

And then we saw a faint third arch on the west end. When considered with the double set of colors in the original arch it made a quadruple rainbow! Spectacular!

* The story of Joy, Alaska is one of joy; Joy Griffin, her husband and their 23 biological and adopted children. Someone may be able to find it on the internet but Suzanne did an excellent job of telling it. The lemonade stand was the idea of two of her kids. Her husband (don't recall his name) set up a tire store at milepost 49.5, figuring tires would be important on the Dalton highway. The kids, seeing their father earn money by supplying a need, set up a lemonade stand to sell lemonade to the passers-by. What Dad didn't know was that they had discovered that, by digging a hole and sinking their pitchers into the perma-frost they could supply ice cold drinks. They made a small fortune by the time they sold out their product. The next time Dad went to town they wanted to ride along. When he went to check out and pay for the goods he was purchasing the boys got in line behind him, buying the ingredients for the lemonade but also a lot of cookies. Dad told them their mother would not allow them to eat that many cookies, to which they replied that the cookies were for their customers! They made even more money before Dad realized the potential of carrying dry goods and other supplies in his tire store, eventually turning it into a General Store.

The Griffins operated their store for many years until they eventually took a vacation and decided they liked retirement. The store is still operating today, supplying both truckers and tour company passengers!