Alaska –
I’ve been a bit bad about journaling lately, although Fairbanks has been going well ish so far.
I feel like I haven’t really enjoyed much of the local area much, but conversely I feel like I’ve caught up A LOT on “life admin” type activities after not having internet for a month and a half. Also, while Fairbanks hardly counts as a “city”, it at least has lovely activities to participate in that I’ve found myself missing.
First things first though, when I originally rolled into Fairbanks I had no water in my busted water tank and had just drove straight to Fairbanks all the way from Dawson City after participating in Dust to Dawson. I was dirty, tired, and had no water. Luckily someone I’d been talking with in Fairbanks on Hinge had no stranger-danger sense and let me use her shower when I rolled into town as well as her driveway to crash for the night, thanks Aileen! The next day I booked a month at River’s Edge RV Park in west Fairbanks, full hookups.
River’s Edge RV Park was certainly a bit pricier than I’d like but it honestly turned out great. Full hookups but also it was a great location. I love being able to take the little Talaria everywhere in town from where I’m camped. I’ve been greatly enjoying all the little events also, like Drag Shows at the Cabin, open mic nights, etc. It finally feels like I’m in a populated area again. Fairbanks has a nice age group of folks for me too, it has the college with a fair amount of grad students as well as the local military base. Speaking of which, as I closed out the drag show at the bar I ended up chatting with someone who knows all about BMW airheads and motos and we definitely instantly clicked. Has been great to genuinely find a friend here in Fairbanks!
I’ll have to post some pics of her grandfather’s old bikes that her stepdad has now. It’s wild in
One hiccup was attempting to get the oil changed on my Sequoia, but was able to get that sorted by camping out at the WalMart Auto section for when they opened.
Fourth of July rolled around and there was an event I’d heard of for years that happened in Alaska. The Glacier View Car Launch. It was this wild event where they launch cars off of a cliff and the crowd gathers to watch and otherwise just party. Definitely a fascinating event where you just need to be there. Unfortunately, it was 6 hours away from Fairbanks. I convinced Heidi to go with me, so we grabbed a cooler and some camping gear and headed down the day before. We camped out at a pullout with the tent and settled in for the night when some more folks pulled up and partied LITERALLY the entire night and morning. No sleep was had. We did get a good spot at the car launch though and it was great to see. Twenty something cars launched over the cliff, I’ll definitely post some pics of that. We did leave a touch early to beat the crowd. That and I was running on 30-something hours of no sleep and had a 6 hour drive back to Fairbanks. We did make it back safely though!
It’s Saturday July 6th. Time is immaterial, I’m sitting at a café journaling and catching up on things because I thought it was Friday! About to hop off here, go to the gym, then go get ready for a pub crawl with Heidi and some of her friends. Free pub crawl (paid drinks) with free food at the end…. Yum. My kind of event. Ciao~