great show earlier in the week that came and went and returned for hours. clouds rolled in around 2:30a and covered the display, but i saw reports that people continued to view them until 7a. i never left the rv park- for various reasons- to get a better, less light-polluted view so images didn't turn out as well had i sought out a dark hilltop. the highlight of the night was a wolf walked six feet behind us while we were watching the lights. he was so quiet that we wouldn't have noticed him had another person watching the lights shout for us to watch out for what was behind us.
on saturday i picked up my dear friend, dr. cary rasof, and he's spending the week with me. he visits alaska once a year for a few days, but never makes it out of anchorage. it's been a treat to show him the scenery, wildlife, and northern lights of alaska. regardless of your definition of "god", dr. cary is truly doing god's work. he's currently taking a break from working at a clinic he founded in northern india that treats people with hepatitis B that have no other treatment options. a link to his website and some of the work he's done is to the right.
we spent two days driving the denali park road. we also spent a couple hours at the denali national park sled dog kennels. we had the place to ourselves and got our fill of dog-time in.
it's been snowing since wednesday and we've been rv-bound since. graeme and i have gone for a couple walks following wolf tracks through the taiga just outside the park (interesting fact: taiga is the most common biome, or landscape, on the planet). you can't have snow without clouds, so although the aurora forecasts said they were happening- we couldn't view the northern lights. tonight looks to be clearing and the forecast is "moderate"- which i've found to be about a 50% chance this far north.
(moose- denali national park)
so i've been living in the rv for a cumulative 5+ weeks now. here's some of what i've learned, or already knew but have had reinforced:
1) there's no sewer system that sucks your bodily waste away so that you never have to deal with it again like it does in our homes. sure, there's a toilet in here, but it just goes into a tank on the bottom of the rv. at some point the tank's gotta be emptied. in most temperate places on the planet, that's not a problem. in alaska, everyone closes their septic dump in mid-september. i didn't know this until i arrived at one in late september, expecting to empty my full septic tank only to be told that it's closed. luckily i found a holiday gas station in anchorage that keeps their septic dump open year round. considering that i'm 6 hours from anchorage, that presents problems. thankfully i'm going to anchorage sunday. you develop a different view of how you use the bathroom when you don't have conventional plumbing. i've been using public toilets, state park facilities, and trees for much of this trip so far. it brings back my days at northland where we learned to substitute sticks, rocks, and snowballs for toilet paper. wiping your butt with a snowball in the morning will do more to wake you up than half a dozen espresso shots- that's a scientific fact;
2) trash is the same. after visiting a municipal landfill for the first time in 2002, i've always thought that everyone should be required to go without trash service and bury it in their own yard for a year so that they can see how much waste they actually generate over time. there's no thought given to what you put on your curbside and is taken away once a week. i'll admit that i appreciate that i don't have to worry about what i throw away once the garbage man takes it when i had normal living arrangements. now i have an appreciation for seeing how little trash i can generate because it doesn't get taken away like how i'm used to;
3) dr. cary is writing a book and needed internet access this week to communicate with his editor, so we've been at this rv park that provides wifi since he joined me. before that i was able to get internet access every few days. the most difficult change has been not having internet access whenever i wanted to get online, especially after having constant accessible internet access for the last 7 years. i'm never bored partially because i always have the internet to learn from and be entertained by. i don't know what else to say about it other than this must be what it was like when i was a kid.
(aurora from monday after the clouds came through and gave it a unusual texture)
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